Nothing there is beyond hope, nothing can be sworn impossible, nothing wonderful, since Zeus, father of the Olympians, made night from mid-day, hiding the light of the shining sun, and sore fear came upon men."
— Archilochus, Greek poet, following the total solar eclipse of 648 BC

On April 8, 2024, a total solar eclipse will be visible to fortunate observers in the United States along a narrow band, approximately 115 miles (185 km) wide, that will cross fifteen states from Texas to Maine.

Calculate local circumstances

Major U.S. Cities in the path of totality: Austin, TX; Dallas, TX; Ft. Worth, TX; Little Rock, AR; Indianapolis, IN; Dayton, OH; Toledo, OH; Cleveland, OH; Buffalo, NY; Rochester, NY; Burlington, VT; Montpelier, VT; Waco, TX; Syracuse, NY.

Use the form below to calculate the local circumstances for cities or towns in the U.S. or its territories.

Eclipse:   2024 April 8 (Total)

State or Territory:   Alabama Alaska American Samoa Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware District of Columbia Florida Georgia Guam Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota N. Mariana Islands Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Puerto Rico Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virgin Islands Virginia Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming

City or Town Name:  

The place name you enter above must be a city or town in the U.S. The place's location will be retrieved from a file with over 22,000 places listed. Either upper- or lower-case letters or a combination can be used. Spell out place name prefixes, as in "East Orange", "Fort Lauderdale", "Mount Vernon", etc. The only exception is "St.", which is entered as an abbreviation with a period, as in "St. Louis". You need only enter as many characters as will unambiguously identify the place. The city or town name may be left blank if the State or Territory is District of Columbia.

Height:  (-90 to 10999)  meters  

For locations using latitude and longitude (and for other eclipses), try our Solar Eclipse Computer. Times are given in UT1; for help converting them to local time, see U.S. Time Zones. Notes on the local eclipse circumstances are located at the bottom of this page.

View global map and circumstances (USNO Eclipse Portal)

The USNO Eclipse Portal provides diagrams and animations showing the global circumstances and local circumstances at selected locations. The Portal is a joint effort with Her Majesty's Nautical Almanac Office (HMNAO), United Kingdom Hydrographic Office.

Times are given in UT; for help converting them to local time, see World Time Zone Map.

View global visibility map (The Astronomical Almanac)

Preliminary Eclipse Visibility Map from The Astronomical Almanac (explanation of map).

For visibility maps of other eclipses, see Eclipses of the Sun and Moon.

View local circumstances at Torreon, Mexico (maximum duration of totality)

Local circumstance diagram for Torreon, Mexico (location of maximum duration of totality) from USNO Eclipse Portal.

General eclipse resources

• Eclipses of the Sun and Moon
  Solar and lunar eclipse visibility maps for recent and upcoming events
• Solar Eclipse Computer
  Computes local circumstances for selected solar eclipses at any given location
• Lunar Eclipse Computer
  Computes circumstances for selected lunar eclipses at any given location
• USNO Eclipse Portal
  Provides diagrams and animations of global and select local circumstances for solar and lunar eclipses, 1501–2100
• References on Eclipses
  Provides a representative survey of the available literature

Notes

The table of local circumstances gives the UT1 time of each eclipse "event" that is visible from the location. The altitude and azimuth of the Sun at each of the events is given as well. The azimuth is reckoned eastward from North. The altitude is corrected for refraction assuming standard atmospheric conditions.

The computation of Eclipse Local Circumstances is started by iteratively computing topocentric positions of the Sun and Moon to find the time of Maximum Eclipse. Another series of position computations is performed going backwards and forwards from the time of Maximum Eclipse to find the times of contacts. The solar and lunar angular diameters are calculated at each position using radius values from DE405 (Sun 696000km; Moon 1737.4 km) to determine if contact conditions have occurred. Lunar limb profiles and center of mass/center of figure corrections are not used.

After contact times have been computed, a check is made to determine if Sunrise and/or Sunset occurred during the course of the eclipse. If so, the time of Sunrise and/or Sunset is computed.

The body of the table contains the time of each contact point, the Sun's topocentric position at that time, and its Position and Vertex Angles. The time of sunrise or sunset is also noted in the table if it occurs during the eclipse. The summary at the bottom contains the Duration, Magnitude, and Obscuration.

The Position Angle of a given contact point on the solar limb is measured eastward (counterclockwise) around the solar limb, from the point on the Sun that is farthest north.

Vertex Angle is similar to Position Angle, except that it is measured from the point on the Sun that has the highest local altitude.

Duration is the amount of time from the beginning of the eclipse to the end.

Duration of Totality is the amount of time from the beginning of the central phase eclipse to the end of the central phase. For an annular solar eclipse, it will read Duration of Annularity .

Magnitude of the eclipse is the fraction of the apparent diameter of the solar disk covered by the Moon at the time of greatest phase, expressed in units of solar diameter.

Obscuration is the percentage of the area of the apparent solar disk obscured by the Moon at maximum eclipse.

Additional eclipse definitions

from The Astronomical Almanac Glossary

altitude:

the angular distance of a celestial body above or below the horizon, measured along the great circle passing through the body and the zenith. Altitude is 90° minus the zenith distance.

azimuth:

the angular distance measured eastward along the horizon from a specified reference point (usually north). Azimuth is measured to the point where the great circle determining the altitude of an object meets the horizon.

ΔT:

the difference between Terrestrial Time (TT) and Universal Time (UT): ΔT=TT − UT1.

eclipse:

the obscuration of a celestial body caused by its passage through the shadow cast by another body.

eclipse, solar:

actually an occultation of the Sun by the Moon in which the Earth passes through the shadow cast by the Moon. It may be total (observer in the Moon's umbra), partial (observer in the Moon's penumbra), annular, or annular-total.

occultation:

the obscuration of one celestial body by another of greater apparent diameter; especially the passage of the Moon in front of a star or planet, or the disappearance of a satellite behind the disk of its primary. If the primary source of illumination of a reflecting body is cut off by the occultation, the phenomenon is also called an eclipse. The occultation of the Sun by the Moon is a solar eclipse.

penumbra:

1. The portion of a shadow in which light from an extended source is partially but not completely cut off by an intervening body. 2. The area of partial shadow surrounding the umbra.

umbra:

the portion of a shadow cone in which none of the light from an extended light source (ignoring refraction) can be observed.