Williamsville, N.Y. (WBEN) - We're less than nine months away from a phenomenon that hasn't taken place in 100 years, and will not happen again for another 120 years in Western New York.
A Total Solar Eclipse is set to sweep directly through Buffalo during the afternoon hours of Monday, April 8, 2024 when the moon will be directly between the sun and the Earth. This will cover the face of the sun for some places on Earth, as the moon's shadow will move across the region at about 2,000 miles an hour.
"Anywhere along this path, you will be able to see the Total Solar Eclipse, where every last bit of the very bright part of the sun will be blocked by the moon, bringing us to a nighttime darkness, and revealing the outer atmosphere of the Sun called the corona, which is stunningly beautiful," said Mark Percy, Director of the Williamsville Space Lab Planetarium located at Williamsville North High School.
For Buffalo, the total time the area will be in darkness due to the Total Solar Eclipse will be about three minutes and 45 seconds. The widest range for the total eclipse to sweep through Western New York will be 100 miles, with the closer you are to Buffalo, the longer you will be in darkness.
The last Total Solar Eclipse that swept through the Continental United States came back in 2017 when areas like Portland, Oregon, Kansas City, Missouri, Nashville, Tennessee and Columbia, South Carolina saw what Buffalo is set to experience come April.
However, as Percy details, that's not the whole event, as there will be over an hour of partial eclipse before and after totality with all kinds of fascinating phenomena that can be observed during just the partial phases.
"There's something called shadow bands. Right before and after totality, you'll see these weird wavy shadows across the ground. That's actually caused by the fact that we've got just a sliver of a sun, but the air is cooling very rapidly," Percy explained. "You know over a hot grill, the air looks all wavy. Well, the entire atmosphere is unstable at that point, and causing this refraction or bending of sunlight across the ground. That's something we weren't able to see in 2017.
"Just before totality, that crescent will actually break up into a series of bright beads, which is sunlight shining through valleys on the edge of the moon. That's a phenomenon that we didn't get to see before.
"When the corona is visible, I would say it almost looks like glowing hair flowing out from the sun. It gets to be a very, very dark, almost like a super deep twilight. You'll be able to see the brighter stars and the planets scattered around the sun, and there's some other phenomenon like a sudden plummet in temperature, changes in animal behavior, winds will kick up."
Percy has been through two Total Solar Eclipses in his lifetime, and says it's the most bizarre but beautiful thing anyone will ever see in the sky.
The only factor going forward that may throw a wrench into the phenomenon is the weather. Regardless of the conditions, the Total Solar Eclipse will take place, but the hope is conditions will remain clear to get the full experience.
"If it's a cloudy day, we will still have a total eclipse. It will still get nighttime dark, the temperature will still plummet by maybe 20 degrees or more, animal behavior will change, the streetlights will come on. There are a lot of interesting phenomena even if it's cloudy, but it's a clear sky event. Everybody needs to keep every finger and toe crossed that we have a day like this on eclipse day," Percy said.
Even though the Total Solar Eclipse isn't for another eight-and-a-half months (262 days to be exact), preparations for this once in a lifetime event have been underway for several months.
"One of the things I've been doing for over a year now is offering solar eclipse training classes. People come in, I give them an overview of the type of phenomena that are going to occur, and why they happen, why eclipses are so rare," Percy said. "Then we get into a whole myriad of different observing techniques, some are very simple that you can do it yourself at home, some involve telescopes and specialized filters. But I want to create a corps of volunteers who can share that news with their friends, their family, their neighbors about how to do things safely, and help avoid any accidents."
Percy has been offering the solar eclipse training classes through the summer, and plans to continue to do so into the fall.
When it comes to safety when viewing the total eclipse, the most important factor to know about is proper eye safety in order to avoid permanent damage when looking directly into the sun's harmful light.
"Regular sunglasses won't do the trick, not even two pairs of sunglasses on top of each other. To view the sun safely before and after totality, you need special glasses that have the International Standards Organization certification that they are safe for direct solar viewing," Percy explained. "These glasses that we've bought for our students and staff here in Williamsville, they're not expensive. They're made out of paper, the filter is a plastic film that's been impregnated with material to block not only the visible light, but also infrared and ultraviolet light that the sun sends our way. This thing right here, the lab certification that they've been tested and are safe is what you want to make sure you've got."
If you happened to save the pair of special sunglasses you may have purchased from 2017, Percy says you can still use them as long as there are no damages to the glasses or the lenses.
If you're interested in buying some of these special glasses, Percy says it's cheaper to buy them by the thousands, as they're only about 50 cents a pair. If you're buying a smaller quantity, they may come in at $2 apiece, but may be as high as $5 apiece if you wait to purchase until little bit later.
However, don't expect these glasses to be readily available the closer we get to April 8, 2024.
"Finding these the day before the eclipse, the week before, or even a month before the eclipse is going to be really difficult," Percy said. "It took us over a month to get our order filled for Williamsville School District. So anybody in Buffalo that's thinking about getting glasses should not wait until the last minute. Get them now."
Another warning Percy has for people interested in buying the special glasses is people were selling counterfeit glasses during the last total eclipse in 2017. He advises to not buy any specialized glasses for the total eclipse unless that have the International Standards Organization certification on the glasses.
One other safety tip Percy has for people wearing the special glasses to view the total eclipse: Look down and make sure they're completely on before looking up at the sun.
There are a number of different methods for also observing the partial phases of the eclipse that Percy says are interesting and fun to try out on your own.
"Learn about some other methods for viewing the sun before and after the total eclipse," he said. "Pinhole projectors are a fun thing to play with, it makes a good do-it-yourself activity. If anybody has a telescope, even a cheap small telescope, if it's fitted with a proper solar filter on the front of the telescope - it's very important that it's got to be a properly made filter on the front end - looking at a magnified view of the sun is fascinating at any time, but even more interesting during the partial phases of the eclipse."
The 2024 total eclipse will take place the day students will normally be coming back from spring break. However, the Williamsville Central School District has decided to add one more day to spring break in order to avoid such incidents like students getting caught on buses in the middle of a city-wide traffic jam.
"What we plan to do is distribute the classes through their classroom teachers before spring break, along with an informational flyer so that people understand the core safety facts we need to communicate," Percy said.
According to Percy, he estimates that up to 1,000,000 people could flock to Buffalo and Western New York just to take in the Total Solar Eclipse on April 8. Another 300,000-to-400,000 people could end up flocking to the Rochester area to also take in the total eclipse.
For anyone looking for more information about this year's total eclipse, Percy has put together a website at BuffaloEclipse.org that goes through the science and safety tips.
"It also links to interactive maps so you can find out exactly when totality happens at your location. It happens in a different time for different people," Percy explained. "It will happen earlier for Indianapolis and later than us up here in Canada. But depending on where you are, you want to know exactly when it's happening in your area."
Other resources for the total eclipse, as well as the solar eclipse training classes are available on the Williamsville Space Lab Planetarium's website:
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