Total Solar Eclipse April 8, 2024

[W2R]

I want to add to the cautionary statements posted by others about planning to drive anywhere near the eclipse path in TX on April 8. I expect lengthy stretches of both IH-10 and IH-35 will experience massive traffic jams after the eclipse.

Based on all the hype and noise I'm already hearing around here about expected traffic congestion in and near the path of totality, I would think any plans to "find a parking lot to watch from" that morning could be a recipe for a big serving of frustration once the event is over. No way do I plan to be on the roads around here on 4/8.

Most schools in the path will be closed that day as the local districts don't think buses will be able to maintain a schedule, especially at the end of the school day. TXDoT says IH 10 to the northwest of San Antonio could be bumper-to-bumper after the eclipse for as far as 100 miles - and that's in a sparsely populated area of the state. The eclipse tracks to the northeast closely aligned with the highly populated IH-35 corridor from Austin all the way to DFW. I would not be surprised if IH -35 traffic comes to a complete halt for hours after the eclipse and does not return to its normal heavily congested level for a day or more.

I'm lucky that I can avoid any travel and watch the big event from the comfort of our deck. Looks like we should have a bit over 3 minutes of totality.

+1 Frank and I still plan to enjoy the eclipse here in our back yards. We have observed both numerous total eclipses and numerous partial eclipses in the past, and decided we have zero desire to battle the traffic and craziness on the interstate on 4/8. We'll leave that for younger folks and stay at home safely in our back yards this time.

I hope that everyone on the forum has a wonderful time watching the eclipse, each in his/her own way.

 

[SecondAttempt]

Even if there is clouds, being in the path of totality should be awesome. There is a rapid temperature drop too, and a circular dusk that is strange. We were in central Oregon for the last one, avoiding any clouds. We'll be in Niagara Falls for this one. And the time of totality is twice as long as the one in 2017.

If there are clouds, get out from under them! It's really no the same.

 

[FLSUnFIRE]

I'm arriving several days early in Austin but the return traffic might be "fun." Still have that part of my itinerary open -planning to drive to Shreveport or, possibly Houston, on the 9th but considering staying one more day if the next day's traffic will still be super heavy. I am trying to figure out a good place (park/preserve with lots of parking and not too far from my lodging for the actual eclipse though).

 

[Surewhitey]

Just a quick look at the path, maybe something like this Lake Hamilton Public Boat Launch in Arkansas?

It says open 24 hours and has what looks like 100 trailer parking spots or so. That lake I think is smack dab in the middle of the path of totality.

Could be worth a shot if we get there early Monday morning, like 6am and grab a spot. A lot would depend on if they enforce the boat parking for boat trailers or if people just park willy nilly that day. It *seems* like it might be possible to grab a spot if you get there early enough, and having a boat means you have reason to be there.

Actually all the lakes around Hot Springs or NC Arkansas would be great. There are lakes around Dallas too for good views. Tawakoni is dead center, just not a pretty lake.

 

[Time2]

There is an interesting phenomena that happens during an eclipse to the ionosphere, making AM radio waves travel much farther. Here is an article from Sky and Telescope, that describes the phenomena it includes what stations and when to try to listen to long distant stations. PM me if this interests you, there is one other paper of a study during the 2017 eclipse that you may want to read. I shortened the long URL below with Tinyurl.


http://tinyurl.com/frfzph9n


https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/groupsioattachments/30900/104521495/39873/0?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAJECNKOVMCCU3ATNQ&Expires=1708695098&Signature=uDzTspAOwxlKvz60Zh39UbHdrAU%3D&response-content-disposition=inline%3B+filename%3D%22Sky%26Telescope%2520-%2520April%25202024%2520-%2520pp%252062-65.pdf%22


Edit: Apparently this site also shortens URLs!

 

[REWahoo]

To the point I made earlier regarding the expected crush of people and traffic along I-35. Bell county is located between Austin and Waco.

Texas county issues state of emergency ahead of eclipse tourism surge

Officials are expecting “extreme” traffic congestion, fuel shortages and strains on first responders due to the event.

During this period, the county is advising people to purchase groceries in advance, refuel their cars and restock on prescriptions. Officials caution residents that cellular reception might be spotty...

 

[Venturer]

One option re: hotels is to do what we did last time. We got close to totality the day before. Since not in totality (a few hours away), there was no eclipse premium. Then we booked a hotel for check in on the day of totality close to where we viewed the eclipse and went there after the eclipse.

That worked out great but I did make one mistake - a big one. After we got to the hotel, we all get cleaned up, ate and took a nap. Feeling great and it still being early, I figured we should just go ahead and drive home. It was a terrible drive. Traffic was so bad that a normal 8 hour drive took more like 12 hours. The expressway was so congested, I didn’t get above 40mph most of the way. It was brutal. We should have just stayed put until morning.

We went to Blairsville Ga. for the 2017 one. Had lunch and then spent the time waiting in their parking lot. Afterwards we hit the back roads south to Ellijay Ga. then across FT. Mountain& were back home watching the traffic backups on the local Atlanta stations news. As you said it was horrendous for the folks trying to get out of the mountains home. I'll sit this one out even though we have some real good former neighbors that live just sout of Dallas and have told us to come on down. Y'all have fun but I'll be on the lake in Ga.

 

[jollystomper]

Going in is not going to be bad. It happens over time. Think of a concert. Yes, somewhat bad getting there and parking but terrible after the event when everyone is leaving at the same time.

I agree. our plan is to get to our destination very early, but have enough food and things to do via foot afterwards so that we will be fine waiting out the traffic volume.

 

[Gumby]

Our plan is to get to our hotel in Plattsburgh, NY early on the Monday morning of the eclipse, park in their lot and then stay put after it's over. In fact, we also booked Tuesday night so we can explore the area the next day. All the hotels in Plattsburgh were full on Sunday night, so we're staying in Saratoga Springs and driving the last 2 hours as early as we can get up on Monday.

 

[Time2]

The 2017 eclipse was my first experience with Waze maps. After the eclipse with my daughter navigating, Waze took us along some back roads for maybe 7 or 8 miles then said traffic is moving well on the highway, guided us over and it was easy driving after that.
When we arrived at our viewing site, a Walmart just off the highway, we crested a hill to look down on a packed Walmart parking lot! It was an on no, moment, but I think we lucked upon the only empty spot off on the side of the store.

 

[PokeNTexas]

One way to confirm they aren't fake is to place your smartphone flashlight against the lens - the light should be barely visible.

Start here perhaps:

https://www.eclipseglasses.com

 

[sengsational]

The idea that there is some kind of shortage of places to view totality does not seem justified to me. If you want to be in a town with access to food and drink, then you will almost certainly have parking issues and be gridlocked after the event. But the totality path is very wide and there are a LOT of roads in this country.

Last time we did go to a small town for the festivities, but our plan was to NOT leave at the end. We just stayed put, had a picnic, flew the quadcopter over the gridlocked traffic, walked over and had a pint, just chilled.

Rather than worrying about darkened glasses, it's trivial to make a viewer using binoculars mounted on a tripod, with a square of cardboard and a screen. You don't look through the binoculars, you just aim at the sun and focus the image on the screen (a piece of paper or poster board). Everyone can stand around and watch. It's very detailed. The taller the tripod (farther away from the screen) the bigger the image. I had a smallish tripod and the diameter was 1.5 inches with 7x binoculars.

 

[Texas Proud]

I thought of heading to Texas for the eclipse, but as others have pointed out, every driveway and campsite is being hawked for $500+. That plus the inevitable crush of traffic just puts a bad taste in my mouth, so I think I'll skip this one. Gibraltar or Egypt in 2027 and Australia in 2028 sound like more fun anyway.

Well, it is easy to just park in a parking lot at a mall or a Walmart... the area is WIDE... just being there you are going to be seeing it...


The big question is will it be a clear day or not...

 

[SecondCor521]

I've traveled to two eclipses so far: The 2017 one went just north of me here in Idaho, and I saw the annular one in southern Utah last fall.

I'm heading to this one and will be in Killeen, TX. My sister rented an AirBnB for a good rate a while ago (I think the host didn't realize it should have been "eclipse pricing" yet) and so we're having a mini get together.

My opinions, worth what you paid for them:

1. 100% totality is a million times better than 99%. I still remember the ~2 minutes back in 2017 and it's making me want to travel to Texas for this one.

2. Be very very careful with binoculars. You can burn a permanent hole in your retina very very quickly. Know what you're doing and be safe.

3. Traffic *to* eclipses is usually near normal. Traffic *after* the eclipse is pretty much a parking lot and it can easily take twice or more the expected time to get anywhere.

 

[thod]

I guess we are pretty lucky.

From my yard, we will get a totality for 3 minutes and 20 seconds. The whole thing should last for 2 hours and 39 minutes.

We are located in Allen, Texas (northern suburb of Dallas).

 

[MuirWannabe]

I guess we are pretty lucky.

From my yard, we will get a totality for 3 minutes and 20 seconds. The whole thing should last for 2 hours and 39 minutes.

We are located in Allen, Texas (northern suburb of Dallas).

Yes, I’m in McKinney. Just hoping for no clouds.

 

[jazz4cash]

I had looked into this when the last eclipse occurred, and I had heard some pretty exciting stories from friends who experienced it 1st hand, and forum members here.

But my wife wasn't interested, and I kind of forgot about it, until today. We had family over for dinner, my son-in law mentions "April 8th" to me, and I draw a blank. He says he coordinated a business trip near Indianapolis (~ 3.5 hour drive from us) around that date, so he could be in the total eclipse region. We talk some more, and he was able to get a room for me as well. I'm stoked!

About 4 minutes of totality, ~ 2.5 hours of partial.

We will be in Greenwood, just outside Indianapolis, and almost exactly in the center of the path:

https://nso.edu/for-public/eclipse-map-2024/


https://science.nasa.gov/eclipses/future-eclipses/eclipse-2024/where-when/

The only ref I found on this forum was for the past one in 2017, with some mentions of the upcoming one in 2024:

https://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f27/the-upcoming-solar-eclipse-85804.html

-ERD50

This is very exciting to me. I have informed a few friends that I might travel to travel to Indy (9 hrs) in April for the eclipse.....none were remotely aware. None have offered accommodations, but that will resolve itself for sure. I usually go in Mid-May for a car show and retiree luncheon so I might be making two trips this year.

 

[samcat]

We are timing our cross country road trip to be in the path of totality on April 8, but no way am I going to pay $800 a night lol. I will just park at a Walmart or something for 30 minutes to catch it, then continue on to a regular priced hotel a hundred miles onward.

We were at the 2017 eclipse in Oregon. Getting out from the eclipse area after the eclipse took hours and hours. The freeway was a parking lot. Hotels the night before were outrageous. The night after the eclipse (same day), the hotels were back to normal rates because everyone left.

 

[BoldPelikan]

Eclipse glasses from NASA

What are all you folks going to use for eye protection.
I see a lot of non-certified cardboard glasses for sale.

How does a person buy a pair and confirm they are not fake ?

We are in Akron, Ohio and will be watching from our driveway and the golf course across the street.

I ordered glasses from NASA in Cleveland --

https://www.nasashop.com/nasashop/shop/product-detail/1000785

 

[samcat]

Just to reiterate what others have said.

We were in Oregon during the 2017 eclipse. People drove down from Washington and drove up from Southern Oregon on I-5 to see the eclipse. It was like a football game. People came in early to find their spot (like a tailgate) and then everyone left at the same time afterwards. I-5 was a parking lot for hours. It took people seven hours to drive a normal two hour drive.

As for hotels, the night before was super expensive. Hotels went back to normal rates the night of the eclipse because everyone was gone.

People flew in on private planes for like an hour and then flew out. It was crazy!

We are headed to Dallas for a long weekend. It is important to be in the totality of the eclipse as opposed to 90% or whatever. 100% is a spiritual experience. Anything less is not anything special. People who were 20 miles away from us in 2017 were sad they missed the 100%.

 

[isisdave]

I'm in the totality path, good for a little over 3 minutes, and have a campsite good for almost 4 minutes only 90 miles to the west. Or we could drive about 45 minutes NW, but they say traffic will be awful.

BUT chances of clear skies in Indiana in early April are only about 50%. So we'll have to see!

Maybe folks will head for Texas, which has better odds of clear skies.

 

[sengsational]

Here's my binoculars/tripod/screen rig that I mentioned in an earlier post. I have a "shutter" to flip over the objective lenses.


If I had to do it again, I'd use my big tripod and make the image even larger.

 

[roh3]

W2R - I know you don’t travel, but if there were ever a time to consider it, an eclipse is certainly one - assuming you’ve never seen one in your life. Look at this site and see if you’re willing. It shows the path. Unfortunately, it looks like you’re about 6 hours or more away.

Mexico - USA - 2024 April 8 Total Solar Eclipse - Interactive Google Map - Xavier Jubier


For anyone - you have to get into the area where it’s 100% (totality). 99% is nothing like 100%. Yes, you’ll see the moon traverse the sun, but totality is completely different and amazing.

It looks like I’m less than 1 mile from the blue center line, but well within the orange lines. Close enough? Or should I walk to be dead center?

 

[kgtest]

Who wants to adopt me and my son? Macallan is out. We deemed it to dangerous to travel as their is do not travel advisory from state department in Sinaloa.

So our backup is to drive 20 hours down to Austin. Anyone know of a spot we can head to?

 

[frogprin01]

I saw the 2017 eclipse and found the experience incredible. It’s a phenomenon to be seen. Southern Illinois University in Carbondale is sponsoring events etc at their stadium and I will be there!!! Can’t wait!!