Meteorological impacts of the total solar eclipse of 21 August 2017
Burt, Stephen
The total solar eclipse of 21 August 2017 traversed the United States from north-west to south-east, and a partial eclipse (at least) was visible in every state. According to news reports, the path of totality was lined with more than 10 million people, making this probably the largest audience for any total solar eclipse in human history. The time of year and time of day was favourable for both good viewing conditions along much of the eclipse path, and for the detection of eclipse-related impacts on surface meteorological variables. Nine automatic weather stations (AWSs) from the high-resolution US Climate Reference Network lay directly under the path of totality, providing very high-quality and high-frequency surface measurements including global solar radiation and aspirated air temperature records. This article briefly summarises the reduction in air temperature and the response lag from time of totality to the time of minimum temperature at each of these locations, and includes a more detailed account of eye, camera and instrumental observations made in north-west Wyoming.
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