August 12, 2045: America’s six-minute eclipse

On a Saturday morning in August 2045, the sky over Northern California will go dark at 9:13 a.m. PDT.

In less than an hour and a half, the same darkness will sweep from the redwoods to the beaches of Florida. Some people will have spent years planning the trip. Others will be caught in a supermarket parking lot, wondering why the streetlights just came on in the middle of the day.

Where the Sun should be, they will all see a black disc ringed with silver fire. In Florida it will stay there for more than six minutes.

Nobody alive has seen a total eclipse that long anywhere in the United States.

And we already know the exact minute it will reach each town, almost 19 years ahead.

The Moon’s shadow will race in from the Pacific at about 3,700 mph (6,000 km/h). At that speed you could fly from Los Angeles to New York in under 40 minutes. By lunchtime it will be over Oklahoma, and by early afternoon it will reach Florida. The whole trip, from a sunrise over the Pacific to a sunset over the South Atlantic, covers about 8,700 miles (14,000 km). It’s farther than New York to Tokyo, yet the shadow does it in about the time of a flight from New York to Miami.

One warning for the coast: Cape Mendocino is famous for its summer fog. If the fog rolls in, people there will still get the darkness, but not the view. Redding, a couple of hours inland, is usually sunny in August and will see the whole show.

A family of giants

Eclipses don’t show up at random. They come in families, a bit like a TV series that releases a new episode every 18 years and 11 days. Each new episode looks a lot like the last one. It just takes place in a different part of the world. Astronomers call each of these families a saros series.

The 2045 eclipse belongs to series 136, a family known for very long eclipses.

Every eclipse in the family happens in summer, between June and August. In early July the Earth is at its farthest from the Sun, so the Sun looks a little smaller than usual. On top of that, these eclipses happen when the Moon is close to the Earth, so the Moon looks a little bigger.

A bigger Moon in front of a smaller Sun covers it with room to spare. Picture sliding a dinner plate across a saucer. The saucer stays hidden for quite a while as the plate moves over it. Now slide one saucer across another of the same size, and the bottom one is covered for barely a moment. In this family, the Moon is the dinner plate.

Each eclipse in the family tree above made history. In 1937, the National Geographic Society sent a team to a tiny coral island in the Pacific to see more than seven minutes of darkness. The 1955 eclipse over Southeast Asia was the longest of the entire 20th century, with 7 minutes and 8 seconds of totality, according to NASA.

In 1973, a prototype Concorde chased the shadow across Africa at twice the speed of sound. The scientists on board stayed in totality for 74 minutes. Nobody has ever gotten more out of a plane ticket.

In 1991, the Moon’s shadow crossed Hawaii and Mexico, and the Sun disappeared for up to 6 minutes and 53 seconds. The 2009 eclipse over India and China lasted up to 6 minutes and 39 seconds. It was shorter than 1991, but still the longest eclipse of the 21st century so far. Next up is August 2, 2027, when the shadow crosses Spain, North Africa and Egypt.

But even giants get old. According to NASA, this family began in 1360 and will fade out in 2622. Each new eclipse is now a little shorter than the one before. In 1955 the darkness lasted more than seven minutes. By 2045 it will be down to a little over six. Still, six minutes is a very long eclipse. The family is simply past its peak.

Thirty-eight years of waiting

For much of the 20th century, Americans didn’t have to go far for a total eclipse. The Moon’s shadow passed over New York City in 1925, Maine in 1963 and the East Coast in 1970. But after 1918, no eclipse crossed the whole country.

The 1918 eclipse arrived on June 8, in the middle of World War I. Astronomers from the US Naval Observatory set up their telescopes in Baker City, Oregon. Then they watched the clouds roll in all morning. Anyone who has planned an outdoor wedding knows the feeling.

“The hearts of the assembled astronomers sank,” wrote the astronomer S. A. Mitchell. At the last moment the clouds thinned out. Mitchell saw the brightest corona of his life. Denver and Jackson, Mississippi, were not so lucky and got only clouds. Meanwhile, in Times Square, newsboys rented out pieces of smoked glass for a nickel a look.

The long wait began after February 26, 1979. Its shadow only clipped the Northwest, and clouds hid most of it. Air traffic controllers counted more than 600 aircraft in its path. At the end of ABC’s broadcast, anchor Frank Reynolds noted that the next total eclipse in the lower 48 states was 38 years away. Then he signed off with a line people still remember: “May the shadow of the moon fall on a world at peace.”

When the shadow finally came back on August 21, 2017, the country went happily crazy. About 215 million American adults watched it in some way. Nearly twice as many people watched it as watched the Super Bowl that year, and the eclipse didn’t even have a halftime show.

About 20 million people traveled to see it. Wyoming, home to about 585,000 people, welcomed an estimated million visitors. For one day the state had roughly two guests for every resident. Traffic on the interstate north of Cheyenne jumped by 403%.

Then came April 8, 2024. About 31.6 million Americans didn’t need to go anywhere, because the shadow came right to them. Across the border, Canada’s Niagara Region even declared a state of emergency.

The kids who looked up in 2017 and 2024 will be adults by 2045. Many will have kids of their own. And this time they will know exactly what they are driving toward.

Following the shadow

The timeline below follows the shadow stop by stop. Each time is when totality starts in that town, in local time. The bar shows how long it lasts. Watch the bars get longer as the shadow moves southeast.

If the route looks familiar, there is a good reason. The 2045 path is a lot like the 2017 path. Both come in from the Northwest and leave through the Southeast. But the 2045 path runs farther south, and that makes a big difference.

In 2017, the longest anyone saw was about 2 minutes and 40 seconds. The 2045 shadow keeps slowing down as it heads toward the Gulf of Mexico. A slower shadow means a longer darkness. By the time it reaches Florida, totality is past six minutes.

A flashlight shows why the shadow slows down. Point it at a wall far away and move your hand a little. The spot of light jumps a long way. Now point it at the floor by your feet and move your hand the same amount. The spot barely moves.

The Moon’s shadow works the same way. When the Sun is low in the sky, the shadow hits the Earth at an angle and races along the ground. With the Sun high overhead, the shadow falls almost straight down and slows to a crawl. Off the California coast it moves at about 3,700 mph. By Oklahoma it has slowed to about 1,800 mph, and by Florida to about 1,550 mph. It’s still faster than a jet, but slow enough to give people six minutes of darkness.

In the West, the eclipse happens in the morning. Over Reno and Pyramid Lake, the Sun will sit about a third of the way up the sky. From high ground you may see the shadow coming, like a dark wall moving across the western horizon. In 1894, the writer Mabel Loomis Todd described it perfectly: “a tangible darkness advancing almost like a wall, swift as imagination, silent as doom.”

Utah does very well. Nephi gets about five minutes and Provo more than four. Salt Lake City sits near the edge of the path and gets about a minute and a half. From there the shadow crosses the red rocks of eastern Utah and the mountains of western Colorado, then drops into Colorado Springs and Pueblo.

Over the Plains, the eclipse arrives around midday, and the darkness gets longer. Tulsa missed totality in 2024, but this time it gets more than five and a half minutes. Little Rock gets more than twice what it had in 2024. Pine Bluff, just down the road, gets nearly six minutes.

Central Florida is where eclipse chasers will want to be. From the Gulf Coast near Floral City to Port St. Lucie on the Atlantic, totality lasts a little over six minutes. It’s the longest anywhere on land. The Sun will be almost straight overhead, so bring a lawn chair that leans back, or just lie on the grass.

Six minutes might not sound like much. But in 2017, most people in the path got about two minutes. Many of them say it went by in a blur. Six minutes gives you time to get over the shock and look around. You can see the sunset colors on every horizon, the planets shining at lunchtime and the faces of the people next to you.

Former NASA astronaut Leroy Chiao has seen the Earth from space. He still says: “An eclipse is one phenomenon that is actually more impressive from the ground.”

The Caribbean’s long wait

After Florida, the shadow crosses the Bahamas. The exact midpoint of the eclipse falls over open water here, so the best seat in the house may be on a boat. Next come the Turks and Caicos and the island of Hispaniola.

For the Dominican Republic and Haiti, it will be the first total eclipse in well over a century. Nobody alive on the island has ever seen one. Santo Domingo, a city of millions, gets nearly six minutes in the early afternoon. Picture a whole capital city stepping outside at the same moment to look up at something no one there has seen before.

From there the shadow heads southeast over the Caribbean Sea. It passes Isla Margarita off Venezuela and Trinidad, then reaches South America. Guyana and Suriname last saw a total eclipse in 1973, during the famous Concorde flight. The 1973 eclipse belongs to the same family as 2045.

In the late afternoon, the shadow reaches São Luís and the coast of northeastern Brazil. The Sun sinks lower every minute. Finally, at sunset, the shadow lifts off the Earth over the South Atlantic.

Best places to watch the total eclipse of August 12, 2045

Every spot inside the path gets the full show, but each region trades something off. The places with the longest totality also have the wettest August weather, and the driest ones give up a minute or more.

• Central Florida, from Crystal River to Port St. Lucie A little over six minutes with the Sun almost overhead. Afternoon thunderstorms are the main risk, so be ready to drive east or west toward a gap in the clouds.
• Utah, around Nephi and Provo About five minutes at Nephi and four and a half at Provo, in the morning, before summer storms usually build. Weather odds here are better than anywhere farther east.
• Colorado Springs and Pueblo More than five minutes, about an hour south of Denver. Expect I-25 to be packed that morning.
• Tulsa and Little Rock About five and a half minutes at midday, in two cities with plenty of hotel rooms. Pine Bluff, south of Little Rock, gets almost six.
• Inland Northern California Redding gets about four and a half minutes and is usually sunny in August. Stay away from the coast, where fog can hide the Sun.
• The Bahamas and the Dominican Republic Close to six minutes from a beach, but the eclipse falls early in hurricane season, so buy flexible tickets.

What the day might look like

Nobody can predict the weather nearly 20 years ahead. But the local climate gives good hints, and 2017 and 2024 tell us a lot about the crowds.

By 2045, phones will take better pictures and eclipse glasses will be cheaper. And somebody, somewhere, will still forget to take the lens cap off at the big moment. The gadgets will change, but the feeling in your stomach when the lights go out will not.

Where the family goes next

At about 3:20 p.m. Eastern time, the shadow will leave the Earth off the coast of Brazil, and the eclipse will be over.

The family will keep coming back every 18 years, a little shorter each time. By our calculation, the next eclipse, on August 24, 2063, peaks over the Pacific with just under six minutes of totality. In 2081 the peak falls in the Persian Gulf region, with about five and a half minutes. By 2099 it is down to a little over five minutes, with the peak over the Atlantic.

So if you want to see this family of giants over the United States while it still has six minutes to give, August 12, 2045, is the date to circle.