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New Yorkers who still have their eclipse glasses rattling around in a junk drawer after 2024 may finally have a reason to dig them out.
A solar eclipse will sweep across parts of the Northern Hemisphere tomorrow, Wednesday, August 12, with the moon passing between Earth and the sun and temporarily blocking some (or, in a few lucky places, all) of the solar disk. New York City is well outside the path of totality, but we will still get a partial eclipse.
The bigger question: Will we actually be able to see it?
RECOMMENDED: This is NYC’s last week with 8pm sunsets until next year (brb, sobbing)
At the moment, things are looking promising. The latest forecast calls for mostly sunny conditions around the time of the eclipse, meaning clouds hopefully won't ruin our tiny slice of celestial drama. And tiny is the operative word here: only about 9.5-percent of the sun's surface is expected to be obscured from NYC at maximum eclipse. (Some reports have cited a figure closer to 19-percent, but that refers to eclipse magnitude, a different measurement.)
In other words, don't expect the eerie twilight that descended on parts of the country during the total solar eclipse in April 2024. In fact, if you're walking around without knowing an eclipse is happening, you probably won't notice anything unusual at all.
For anyone paying attention, though, the show starts at approximately 1:07 pm, with the moon appearing to take an increasingly noticeable nibble out of the sun. Maximum eclipse arrives at around 1:54 pm, before the moon gradually moves away and the whole thing wraps up at approximately 2:38 pm.
One thing that hasn't changed since the last eclipse. Because it will only be partial in New York, there is no point during the event when it will be safe to look at the sun without proper eye protection—and regular sunglasses won't cut it. You'll need certified eclipse glasses or a handheld solar viewer designed specifically for looking at the sun.
And if tomorrow's eclipse feels a little underwhelming compared with the blockbuster of two years ago, consider it an astronomical appetizer. The August 12 eclipse is a much bigger deal elsewhere: totality will cross parts of Greenland, Iceland and Spain, while New York gets its modest little bite of the sun.
Hey, we'll take what we can get!