A swath of the United States from Texas to Maine will experience a total solar eclipse Monday afternoon. And while the Statesboro/Bulloch County area is not in the direct path, the eclipse will reach about 70 percent coverage here at 3:07 p.m. Monday afternoon, according to the National Weather Service.
And unlike in August 2017, when a near-total solar eclipse passed over Statesboro, clear skies are forecast for Monday. On that Monday almost seven years ago, thick cloud cover obscured the 97-percent pinnacle of nature’s unique show from local eyes. In fact, about an hour after the moon started to cover the sun at 1:15 p.m., Aug. 21, 2017, clouds made the effects of the eclipse mostly impossible to see.
On Monday, the eclipse will enter North America over Mexico’s Pacific coast and cross the U.S. from Texas to Maine before exiting over eastern Canada into the Atlantic.
The path of total darkness — where the moon lines up perfectly between the Earth and the sun, blotting out all sunlight — crosses parts of 15 states: Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.
The peak spectacle in each will last about 4 minutes, 28 seconds in the path of total darkness — a 115-mile-wide path that slices across the continent. That's the place to be to experience the full eclipse. Most of the rest of the continent outside the path of totality will get a partial eclipse, including the Statesboro/Bulloch area.
In Statesboro, the partial solar eclipse will begin at 1:49 p.m., with the peak at 3:07 p.m. and end at 4:22 p.m.
Even though, it won’t be a total eclipse, safety glasses are needed to look at the eclipse directly, without risking damage to your eyes looking at the sun. Special glasses need to meet the ISO 12312-2 standard. If you have glasses left from 2017 and they are not damaged, they are still safe to use to view Monday’s eclipse.
Eclipse viewers also can watch the total solar eclipse online.
NASA will stream on telescope and on NASA TV starting at 1 p.m. Click here to access the NASA stream.
When is the next total solar eclipse?
Full solar eclipses occur every year or two or three, often in the middle of nowhere like the South Pacific or Antarctic. The next total solar eclipse, in 2026, will occur along the northern fringes of Greenland, Iceland and Spain.
But the next total eclipse that will occur in the Statesboro/Bulloch area won’t happen until 2052 – March 30, 2052, to be exact.
North America won’t experience totality again until 2033, with Alaska getting sole dibs. Then that’s it until 2044, when totality will be confined to Western Canada, Montana and North Dakota.
There won’t be another U.S. eclipse, spanning coast to coast, until 2045. That one will stretch from Northern California all the way to Cape Canaveral, Florida.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
