ATHENS COUNTY, Ohio — An eclipse is all about the sun — something we don’t get to see much of in April. A National Weather Service analysis of data from 1979 to 2022 found that Athens County usually has 60% to 70% cloud cover on April 8.
“It’s spring, and spring is a pretty active season for weather,” said Ryan Fogt, professor of meteorology and director of the Scalia Lab for Atmospheric Analysis at Ohio University. “Generally, there’s low pressure in the region passing through this time of year, so we have a lot of cloud cover across much of the state.”
But clouds don’t mean that the eclipse will be a bust, Fogt said.
“Even with clouds, you will still notice it being darker — it’ll be darker than a normal storm when it darkens, because much of the sun will be completely blocked here,” he said.
The difference in light levels can be dramatic, according to Debra Ross, co-chair of the American Astronomical Society’s Solar Eclipse Task Force.
“If it’s a sunny day, the world around you is going to kind of like twilight,” Ross said in a video about sunny vs. cloud eclipses. “If it’s cloudy, all of a sudden, in the last minute before totality, it will whoosh! down to dark like midnight.”
Because our spring weather is so changeable, we won’t have a reliable idea of Monday’s weather until the weekend, Fogt said.
“I think we can have a pretty good clear if it’s a good indication about the chance for clouds and rain, three days out,” he said. “Maybe Friday, but certainly on Saturday, we should know what Monday would look like and have a better idea of the timing. And then by Sunday, we should have a pretty good forecast for the percentage of cloud cover the likeliness of rain.”
Fogt recommended monitoring the Weather Prediction Center’s website — look for “Latest Key Messages for 2024 Total Solar Eclipse” under the WPC Top Stories heading on the right side of the page.
