Solar Eclipse Paths - 2010-2030

This dataset gives us a glimpse of what has recently been and what is soon to come. That is, twenty years of solar eclipse paths from 2010 - 2030. Blue represents the annular eclipse paths and red represents the total eclipse paths.

In 2023 and 2024, there are two that cross America. First, an annular eclipse on October 14, 2023 from Oregon through parts of Nevada, Utah, New Mexico and Texas. Second, a total eclipse on April 8, 2024 that makes a big path across a populated chunk of the United States. Cities in totality include (but are not limited to): San Antonio, Austin, and Dallas, Texas; Indianapolis, Indiana; Dayton and Cleveland, Ohio; Buffalo, Syracuse and Rochester, New York; Burlington, Vermont; and Montreal, Canada.

Solar eclipses are magnificent to see and happen somewhat regularly, though they rarely cross the same location. Focusing on total solar eclipses, there are roughly two in a three-year period on Earth, but the shadow of totality often is only about fifty miles wide. The average number of years between a place on Earth having two total solar eclipses is once in every four hundred years! That is just an average, however, and two can occur in the same place over a short period of time too.

Eclipses are very predictable as they follow a cycle that takes place over 6,585 days. This cycle is known as the Saros cycle. Every 18 years, 11 days, and 8 hours, a similar eclipse path arises as the Sun, Earth, and Moon are relatively in the same geometry, but shifted over 120 degrees in longitude on Earth. Thanks to the cycle, we know that the path the 2023 Annular Eclipse will follow (Saros 134) will repeat on October 25, 2041, just over China and Japan. You can see the cycle pretty clearly when looking at the annular (blue) eclipse on January, 15, 2010 starting in Africa and moving through Asia, as well as the one that will occur in South America and Europe on January 26, 2028.

Annular eclipses are not quite total, which means that there is a bit of the sun peeking out from the sides. Still, they are magnificent and should be celebrated!

Eclipse paths were pulled from the ArcGIS Hub and then filtered and formatted using ArcGIS Pro.