Texas city predicted to be most popular
in the country for the total solar eclipse
Houston Cronicle,
by
Ariana Garcia
Original Article
Posted By: Imright,
1/5/2024 4:53:09 AM
Texas has one of the best viewing spots for the upcoming April 4, 2024 total solar eclipse. Unfortunately, that means the Lone Star State will also likely be the busiest observing location in the country that day. Per a report from Space.com, just over a million visitors are predicted to roll into Texas to witness the rare celestial phenomenon, the last to be visible in the U.S. until 2044.The calculation by Michael Zeiler, an eclipse cartographer at GreatAmericanEclipse.com, is based on ArcGIS software, U.S. Bureau of the Census data, and a detailed digital road network for the U.S. The 115-mile-wide path of totality will cross North America
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Reply 1 - Posted by:
NamVet70 1/5/2024 8:38:33 AM (No. 1630028)
"Unfortunately, that means the Lone Star State will also likely be the busiest observing location in the country that day." - Many people profit from tourism, and Texas has plentiful infrastructure to support tourism. I fail to understand how that is unfortunate.
10 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
Quigley 1/5/2024 9:01:11 AM (No. 1630036)
The article says the eclipse is on April 4, 2024. The embedded map graphic says it is on April 8, 2024.
I guess I'll have to calculate it myself.
6 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
Skinnydip 1/5/2024 10:16:43 AM (No. 1630093)
The article is wrong. The correct date is April 8. Does nobody proof-read anymore?
6 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
Gordon Mills 1/5/2024 10:40:18 AM (No. 1630103)
'Journalists' are liars. Period. Can't even get an eclipse date right. This was not a mistake.
3 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
Birddog 1/5/2024 10:59:27 AM (No. 1630117)
Reads more like a tourist promotion event by Kerrville, et al..basically ASKING people to come.(should coincide with Bluebells I think)
There are plenty of other viewing spots much closer to major population centers, all across the country. Visibility will be more controlled by cloud cover at those particular times.
https://smd-cms.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/total_eclipse_map-1.jpg?w=1024&format=webp
3 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
kono 1/5/2024 12:24:23 PM (No. 1630160)
"will have the longest duration of totality anywhere in the U.S., lasting a whopping 4 minutes, 26 seconds."
That's pretty long. If you go into the path of totality, be sure to bring a timer to alert you when the sun is about to peek back out from behind the moon. Because that 4 minutes will seem like 2, and you don't want to have the "diamond ring" image burned into your retina!
Drove 31 hours from SF to Cabo in 1991 for seven minutes of totality -- it was glorious and surreal. And it felt more like 4 minutes, so I was glad for my timer.
3 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
DVC 1/5/2024 12:42:36 PM (No. 1630171)
Nah. We prefer to find some place out in the absolute middle of nowhere with NOTHING around to set up chairs and cameras and enjoy the event. For the last one, we planned on driving about an hour north into southern Nebraska to see it. I'd picked out a nice, tiny state park where we could view it, far from any town, let alone city. As we headed out, the day before with our camping gear and cameras, etc....the weather turned bad, but to the west a couple of extra hours drive, predictions were for clear skies the following day, the eclipse day. Of course, the western edge of the clouds kept moving farther west, and we got committed to the point that we spent the night in Douglas, Wyoming and drove out to a roadside location free of trees about 20 miles out of town, right on the eclipse totality line. We had a few dozen other folks drive up while we were there, and we watched and photographed the eclipse and then drove home. We had to select 2 lane back roads because the main roads, even in Wyoming, and especially the interstate, were totally clogged. A fun little 2 day adventure, and I got some great photos, including a shot where the planet Mercury is visible - it's so close to the sun that it's almost impossible to photograph.
We might do it again - but certainly not to a city. The empty Wyoming countryside was crowded enough.
2 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
Proud Texan 1/5/2024 2:00:32 PM (No. 1630219)
I'll have to be sure to walk out on my front porch at the right time to see it. I only saw a little of the partial eclipse in October because I looked out the window and all the shadows around were very distinct and brought my attention to the eclipse. The total eclipse I saw while in college was awesome. A lot of use were late to class that day.
2 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
john56 1/5/2024 2:14:37 PM (No. 1630231)
There are a whole lot worse places to see an eclipse than Kerrville, Texas. Hill Country is really the prettiest part of Texas/. You'll probably get a good look at the bluebonnets. You're at the start of the Guadalupe River, which provides a lot of entertainment (fishing, boating, tubing, waterskiing) along its path to the Gulf of Mexico. Lots of Texas wineries in the area and Fredericksburg, about 20 miles away, is a beautiful German town and features a great museum dedicated to the US Pacific War (Adm Niimitz was a native of Freddy). Go down the road a bit and you're at the LBJ Ranch. Oh, and as a plug, nearby Hye features the Garrison Brothers bourbon distillery and it's worth a tour. Free samples at the end.
But as my native Texas wife says, come visit. Don't stay. She still wants Texas to build a border wall. Along its east, west, and northern borders
2 people like this.
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