The total solar eclipse is coming on April 8, and that means those of us in the path of totality will effectively go from daylight to nighttime for several minutes.
So, how far will the temperature fall while we experience totality during the eclipse? Who better to answer than News 5 Chief Meteorologist Mark Johnson?
He said the amount of temperature drop is dependent on a number of factors: the time of year, the season, and the local atmospheric conditions, like humidity and cloud coverage.
But, on average, he said, we can expect a temperature drop during the eclipse of about 10 degrees, but it can go lower than that.
On Dec. 9, 1834, during a large solar eclipse across the East Coast of the United States, the Gettysburg, Pennsylvania newspaper reported a temperature fall from 78 degrees to 50 degrees—a full 28-degree drop, all in a matter of minutes.
No matter what the weather ends up being on April 8, Mark recommends packing an extra layer – you wouldn’t want to be chilly during the once-in-a-lifetime solar eclipse experience!
As for the weather on April 8, Mark said it’s still too early to call with any certainty, but he did look at historical cloud cover records over the last few decades to get an idea of the type of weather we can expect:
