Tag Archives: Solar Eclipse

An unusual string of Coincidences or is Something Bigger happening?

Solar-Eclipse

Important Takeaways:

  • Is It Just A Coincidence That A Magnitude “4.8” Earthquake Hit Our Largest Metropolitan Area Just Days Before “4/8”?
  • Oh, is this a question that I am not supposed to be asking? Following the earthquake that shook up the Big Apple on Friday, a lot of people were suggesting that it seemed really weird that a magnitude “4.8” earthquake would hit our largest metropolitan area just days before the Great American Eclipse of 2024 passes over the United States on “4/8”.
  • In fact, it is being reported that this was the largest earthquake in New York City since 1884.
  • It turns out that the war between Israel and Hamas was being discussed at the UN at the exact moment that the earthquake hit…
    • the United Nations in Midtown Manhattan, a Security Council address on the Israel-Gaza conflict was interrupted as cameras began shuddering.
  • And we have also learned that the earthquake struck very close to a location in New Jersey known as “Lebanon”…
    • A rare earthquake rocked the New York City area Friday morning, swaying buildings and sending terrified residents into the streets — the strongest temblor to strike near the Big Apple in 140 years.
    • City officials quickly warned people of the danger of potential aftershocks — which began in the early afternoon in New Jersey, a report said.
    • The preliminary 4.8-magnitude earthquake struck near Lebanon, NJ, around 10:23 a.m. and was potentially felt by more than 42 million people, according to the US Geological Survey.
  • It is also being reported that the epicenter of the earthquake was a place called “Whitehouse Station”…
    • The epicenter of the earthquake was in Whitehouse Station, Hunterdon County, at 10:23 a.m.
  • Donald Trump actually owns a golf course that is approximately 7 miles away from the epicenter of the earthquake…
  • Interestingly, this quake occurred exactly 7 months before the presidential election happens on November 5th.
  • Yes, there is a possibility this is just one really long string of incredibly bizarre coincidences.
  • And a lot of people are trying to make that argument.
  • Of course it isn’t just people like us that have been anticipating this eclipse. NASA will be firing three rockets toward the eclipse on April 8th, for some reason CERN selected that specific day to fire up the Large Hadron Collider, and a state of emergency has been declared in many areas that will be along the path of totality.

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Besides the well known Solar Eclipse, Michael Snyder points out other unusual events taking place

Night-Sky-Snip-68x503

Important Takeaways:

  • 3 Very Unusual Things That Are Happening In The Heavens Right Now
  • #1 A massive geomagnetic storm hit the Earth on Sunday.
    • The good news is that this storm was not strong enough to damage our power grids.
    • But it did create “a major disturbance in Earth’s magnetic field”, and CBS News is reporting that we should keep a close eye on the sun because “more X-class flares are possible through Wednesday”…
  • #2 The Devil Comet continues to race through the solar system and could soon be visible to the naked eye.
    • It only comes around once every 71 years.
    • Now the “Devil Comet” is here, and we are being told that it is likely that we will be able to see it with the naked eye by the end of this month…
  • #3 A lunar eclipse painted the sky red over much of the planet on Monday.
    • In recent years, there has been a tremendous amount of speculation about what blood moons might mean.
    • Very early on Monday morning, we got to witness one of these blood moons…

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Look up: Ring of Fire Solar Eclipse will be visible Oct 14

Ring-of-Fire-Solar-Eclipse

Important Takeaways:

  • ‘Ring of fire’ solar eclipse is coming to US in October. Here’s when (and where) you can see it.
  • An annular “ring of fire” solar eclipse will be visible across the Western Hemisphere on Oct. 14, and Americans across several Western states will be able to see it.
  • It’s called a “ring of fire” eclipse because only the outer ring of the sun will be visible during the height of the spectacle.
  • The annular eclipse will first be seen in the U.S. near Eugene, Oregon, before traveling across the country with visibility in parts of Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Texas, California, Idaho, Colorado and Arizona. It will end in Texas.
  • A partial solar eclipse is expected to be visible in all 48 contiguous states, as well as Alaska.

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Rare total solar eclipse spreads wonder across United States

Enthusiasts Tanner Person (R) and Josh Blink, both from Vacaville, California, watch a total solar eclipse while standing atop Carroll Rim Trail at Painted Hills, a unit of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, near Mitchell, Oregon, U.S. August 21, 2017. Location coordinates for this image is near 44°39'117'' N 120°6'042'' W. REUTERS/Adrees Latif

By Lee van der Voo and Harriet McLeod

SHERIDAN, Oregon/CHARLESTON, S.C. (Reuters) – Millions of Americans looked skyward in awe through protective glasses, telescopes and cameras on Monday as the first coast-to-coast total solar eclipse in a century marched from the U.S. Pacific Northwest to the Atlantic seaboard.

After weeks of anticipation, onlookers from Oregon to South Carolina whooped and cheered as the moon blotted out the sun, plunging a narrow band of the United States into near darkness and colder temperatures for two minutes at a time. Even President Donald Trump stepped out of the White House to see the eclipse.

“It’s more powerful than I expected,” Robert Sarazin Blake, 40, a singer from Bellingham, Washington, said after the eclipse passed through Roshambo ArtFarm in Sheridan, Oregon. “All of a sudden you’re completely in another world. It’s like you’re walking on air or tunneling underground like a badger.”

Solar Eclipse in Depoe Bay, Oregon, U.S. August 21, 2017. Location coordinates for this image are 44º48'35" N 124º3'43" W. REUTERS/Mike Blake

Solar Eclipse in Depoe Bay, Oregon, U.S. August 21, 2017. Location coordinates for this image are 44º48’35” N 124º3’43” W. REUTERS/Mike Blake

No area in the United States had seen a total solar eclipse since 1979, while the last coast-to-coast total eclipse took place in 1918.

The rare cosmic event was expected to draw one of the largest audiences in human history, including those watching through broadcast and social media.

Some 12 million people live in the 70-mile-wide (113-km-wide), 2,500-mile-long (4,000-km-long) zone where the total eclipse appeared, while hordes of others traveled to spots along the route.

Solar Eclipse in Depoe Bay, Oregon, U.S. August 21, 2017. Location coordinates for this image are 44º48'35" N 124º3'43" W. REUTERS/Mike Blake

Solar Eclipse in Depoe Bay, Oregon, U.S. August 21, 2017. Location coordinates for this image are 44º48’35” N 124º3’43” W. REUTERS/Mike Blake

The eclipse first reached “totality” – the shadow cast when the sun is completely blocked by the moon – in Oregon at 10:15 a.m. PDT (1715 GMT) and began spreading eastward.

“It just kind of tickled you all over – it was wonderful – and I wish I could do it again,” said Stormy Shreves, 57, a fish gutter who lives in Depoe Bay, Oregon. “But I won’t see something like that ever again, so I’m really glad I took the day off work so I could experience it.”

The phenomenon took its final bow at 2:49 p.m. EDT (1849 GMT) near Charleston, South Carolina, where eclipse gazers had gathered atop the harbor’s sea wall.

A number of towns within the eclipse’s path set up public events. At the Southern Illinois University campus in Carbondale, Illinois, the 15,000-seat football stadium was sold out for Monday.

Other people in the eclipse zone hosted their own private viewing parties. At a mountain cabin in the woods in Murphy, North Carolina, the air grew cool as the moon slowly chipped away at the sun before covering it completely, leaving only a surrounding halo of light.

“That was the most beautiful thing. I could die happy now — I won’t, but I could,” said Samantha Gray, 20, an incoming graduate student at University of Chicago. “Anybody want to go on vacation with me in April 2024?”

Another total solar eclipse will cut from Mexico across the southeastern and northeastern United States on April 8, 2024.

 

PARTIAL ECLIPSE DRAWS OWN SPECTATORS

 

The Monument of Liberty State is photographed while the solar eclipse is seen over Liberty State Island in New York, U.S., August 21, 2017. Location coordinates for this image are 40.4124°N, 74.237°W. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz

The Monument of Liberty State is photographed while the solar eclipse is seen over Liberty State Island in New York, U.S., August 21, 2017. Location coordinates for this image are 40.4124°N, 74.237°W. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz

For millions of others outside the zone of totality, a partial eclipse appeared throughout North America, a spectacle that attracted its own crowds in cities like New York.

 

In Washington, D.C., Trump was photographed on a White House balcony squinting at the sun without protective eyewear, as an aide below shouted, “Don’t look!” Looking at the sun during a partial eclipse can cause severe eye damage.

Trump, first lady Melania Trump and their son, Barron, then donned protective glasses.

U.S. President Donald Trump watches the solar eclipse with first Lady Melania Trump and son Barron from the Truman Balcony at the White House in Washington, U.S., August 21, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

U.S. President Donald Trump watches the solar eclipse with first Lady Melania Trump and son Barron from the Truman Balcony at the White House in Washington, U.S., August 21, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

Nearby, thousands of people lined the National Mall at 2:45 p.m., when four-fifths of the sun was blacked out.

“It’s amazing, super cool,” said Brittany Labrador, 30, a nurse practitioner from Memphis. “It’s kind of just cool to watch in the capital.”

Perhaps never before have so many people had the opportunity to see a total eclipse, said cartographer Michael Zeiler, who maintains the www.greatamericaneclipse.com website and has seen nine total eclipses, including Monday’s.

Zeiler estimated up to 7.4 million people traveled to the zone to observe the total eclipse, which is taking place in the peak vacation month of August.

Many people trekked to remote national forests and parks of Oregon, Idaho and Wyoming. Those who live along the path, which cut through cities like Kansas City, Missouri, and Nashville, Tennessee, were able to simply walk out their homes and look up.

 

For those outside the shadow’s path or trapped indoors, a NASA-linked website, eclipse.stream.live, provided a live stream filmed from the vantage point of 50 helium-filled balloons at a height of 80,000 feet (24,384 meters).

During a total eclipse, the sun’s disappearing act is just part of the show. The heavens dim to a quasi-twilight and some stars and planets become visible.

The last glimmer of light gives way to a momentary sparkle known as the “diamond ring” effect just before the sun slips completely behind the moon, leaving only the aura of its outer atmosphere, or corona, visible.

 

(Additional reporting by Jane Ross in Depoe Bay, Oregon, Brian Snyder in Carbondale, Illinois, Ian Simpson and Steve Holland in Washington, D.C., Steve Gorman in Salmon, Idaho, and Irene Klotz in Murphy, North Carolina; Writing by Frank McGurty and Joseph Ax; Editing by Bill Trott)

 

Millions of Americans await awe-inspiring total solar eclipse

By Steve Gorman and Irene Klotz

SALMON, Idaho/MURPHY, N.C. (Reuters) – Millions of Americans armed with protective glasses are taking positions along a slender ribbon of land cutting diagonally across the United States to marvel at the first total solar eclipse to unfold from coast to coast in nearly a century.

After weeks of anticipation, the sight of the moon’s shadow passing directly in front of the sun, blotting out all but the halo-like solar corona, will draw one of the largest audiences in human history, experts say.

When those watching via social and broadcast media are included, the spectacle will likely smash records.

Some 12 million people live in the 70-mile-wide (113-km-wide), 2,500-mile-long (4,000-km-long) zone where the total eclipse will appear on Monday. Millions of others have traveled to spots along the route to bask in its full glory.

Murphy, North Carolina, in the Smoky Mountains about two hours north of Atlanta, is among hundreds of small towns that are preparing for a huge influx of visitors.

“The weather forecast for Monday is beautiful, probably not a cloud in the sky all day,” said Dave Vanderlaan, 61, a retired landscaper. “We’re busy, but tomorrow anybody in Atlanta who says they want to see total, they’re going to come up to this area, so it could be crazy.”

Millions of Americans armed with protective glasses are taking positions along a slender ribbon of land cutting diagonally across the United States to marvel at the first total solar eclipse to unfold from coast to coast in nearly a century.. REUTERS/Rick Wilking

Millions of Americans armed with protective glasses are taking positions along a slender ribbon of land cutting diagonally across the United States to marvel at the first total solar eclipse to unfold from coast to coast in nearly a century.. REUTERS/Rick Wilking

The phenomenon will first appear at 10:15 a.m. PDT (1715 GMT) near Depoe Bay, Oregon. Some 94 minutes later, at 2:49 p.m. EDT (1849 GMT), totality will take its final bow near Charleston, South Carolina.

The last time such a spectacle unfolded from the Pacific to the Atlantic coast was in 1918. The last total eclipse seen anywhere in the United States took place in 1979.

In Depoe Bay, a town of about 1,500 people, clear skies on Sunday raised hopes that the corona would be visible and not obscured by coastal haze or cloud.

Lisa Black, from Vancouver, Canada, said she and her party planned to have breakfast on the beach and be ready with their glasses.

“And, yeah, it will be cool to be able to look out at the ocean and just have the openness when it goes totally dark,” she said.

For millions of others who can’t get there, a partial eclipse of the sun will appear throughout North America if there is no local cloud cover.

Perhaps never before have so many people had the opportunity to see a total eclipse, said Michael Zeiler, a self-described “eclipse chaser” who on Monday will notch his ninth time seeing “totality.”

Weeks of publicity have fanned excitement, he said, and may have persuaded many families to make last-minute plans for a road trip to the zone.

Zeiler, who runs GreatAmericanEclipse.com, a website devoted to the event, estimates that up to 7.4 million people with travel to the zone to observe the total eclipse, which takes place in the peak vacation month of August.

Many people have trekked to remote national forests and parks of Oregon, Idaho and Wyoming, while others have bought tickets to watch the show en masse in a Carbondale, Illinois, football stadium, a two-hour drive southeast of St. Louis.

In South Carolina, Charleston County’s more than 16,000 hotel rooms are booked, tourism officials say. Police expect up to 100,000 visitors to the area on Monday.

Those who live along the path, which cuts through a few population centers like Kansas City and Nashville, Tennessee, can simply walk out their homes and look skyward.

For all but the couple of minutes of totality, observers must wear specially designed solar-safe sunglasses or filters to avoid severe eye damage. It is never safe to gaze directly at a partial eclipse with the naked eye.

Unlike many other astronomical events, such as comets and meteor showers, that often fail to live up to their hype, a total eclipse is nearly a sure thing, so long as the weather cooperates, experts say.

A predictive map issued on Sunday by Weather Decision Technologies Inc shows clear skies in the West, clouds in Nebraska and northwest Missouri, and partly cloudy conditions farther east.

The sun’s disappearing act is just part of the show. As the black orb of the moon gradually nibbles away at the sun’s face, the heavens dim to a quasi-twilight, and some stars and planets emerge.

Shadows on the ground seem to deepen, sunset-like colors streak the sky at the horizon, the air grows still, temperatures drop and birds cease to chirp as they settle in trees to roost.

The last glimmer of the sun gives way to a momentary sparkle known as the “diamond ring” effect just before the sun slips completely behind the moon, leaving only the aura of its outer atmosphere, or corona, visible in the darkness.

The corona, lasting just two minutes or so during Monday’s eclipse, marks the peak phase of totality and the only stage of the eclipse safe to view with the naked eye.

The overall display as seen at each point along the eclipse path, including the partial phases before and after totality, lasts nearly three hours.

 

(Additional reporting by Jane Ross in Depoe Bay; Writing by Steve Gorman, Frank McGurty and Ian Simpson; Editing by Sandra Maler)

 

Solar eclipse presents first major test of power grid in renewable era

FILE PHOTO -- An array of solar panels are seen in Oakland, California, U.S. on December 4, 2016. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson/File Photo

By Ruthy Munoz

HOUSTON (Reuters) – As Monday’s total solar eclipse sweeps from Oregon to South Carolina, U.S. electric power and grid operators will be glued to their monitoring systems in what for them represents the biggest test of the renewable energy era.

Utilities and grid operators have been planning for the event for years, calculating the timing and drop in output from solar, running simulations of the potential impact on demand, and lining up standby power sources. It promises a critical test of their ability to manage a sizeable swing in renewable power.

Solar energy now accounts for more than 42,600 megawatts (MW), about 5 percent of the U.S.’s peak demand, up from 5 MW in 2000, according to the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC), a group formed to improve the nation’s power system in the wake of a 1964 blackout. When the next eclipse comes to the United States in 2024, solar will account for 14 percent of the nation’s power, estimates NERC.

For utilities and solar farms, the eclipse represents an opportunity to see how well prepared their systems are to respond to rapid swings in an era where variable energy sources such as solar and wind are climbing in scale and importance.

Power companies view Monday’s event as a “test bed” on how power systems can manage a major change in supply, said John Moura, director of reliability assessment and system analysis at the North American Electric Reliability Corp.

“It has been tested before, just not at this magnitude,” adds Steven Greenlee, a spokesman for the California Independent System Operator (CISO), which controls routing power in the nation’s most populous state.

CISO estimates that at the peak of the eclipse, the state’s normal solar output of about 8,800 MW will be reduced to 3,100 MW and then surge to more than 9,000 MW when the sun returns.

CISO’s preparation includes studying how German utilities dealt with a 2015 eclipse in that country. Its review prompted the grid overseer to add an additional 200 MW to its normal 250 MW power reserves.

“We’ve calculated that during the eclipse, that solar will ramp off at about 70 MW per minute,” said Greenlee. “And then we’ll see the solar rolling back at about 90 MW per minute or more.”

Power utilities say the focus will be on managing a rapid drop off and accommodate the solar surge post the eclipse. Utility executives say they do not expect any interruption in service, but are prepared to ask customers to pare usage if a problem arises.”We want to assure our customers that we have secured enough resources to meet their energy needs, even with significantly less solar generation on hand,” said Caroline Winn, chief operating officer at utility San Diego Gas & Electric Co.

In the Eastern United States, utilities will have more time to watch the results of their Western counterparts. PJM Interconnection, which coordinates electricity transmission among 13 states from Michigan to North Carolina, says non-solar sources such as hydro and fossil fuel can easily supplant the 400 MW to 2,500 MW solar loss, depending on the cloud cover.

For small-scale solar providers, the eclipse is a drop in the revenue bucket. Ron Strom, a North Carolina real estate developer, sells the power from a 58 kilovolt system atop a commercial property in Chapel Hill to Duke Energy.

“The event may cost me eighteen cents or thereabouts if my panels don’t produce solar for three hours,” said Strom.

(Additional reporting by Nichola Groom in Los Angeles; editing by Diane Craft)

Millions of Americans to gaze upon Monday’s once-in-a-lifetime eclipse

Millions of Americans to gaze upon Monday's once-in-a-lifetime eclipse

By Steve Gorman

(Reuters) – Twilight will fall at midday on Monday, stars will glimmer and birds will roost in an eerie stillness as millions of Americans and visitors witness the first total solar eclipse to traverse the United States from coast to coast in 99 years.

The sight of the moon’s shadow passing directly in front of the sun, blotting out all but the halo-like solar corona, may draw the largest live audience for a celestial event in human history. When those watching via broadcast and online media are factored into the mix, the spectacle will likely smash records.

“It will certainly be the most observed total eclipse in history,” astronomer Rick Fienberg of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) said last week.

The eclipse begins its cross-country trajectory over the Pacific Coast of Oregon in late morning. It will reach South Carolina’s Atlantic shore some 90 minutes later.

The total eclipse of the sun is considered one of the most spell-binding phenomena in nature but it rarely occurs over a wide swath of land, let alone one of the world’s most heavily populated countries at the height of summer.

In terms of audience potential, it is hard to top the United States, with its mobile and affluent population, even though the direct path is mostly over rural areas, towns and small cities. The largest is Nashville, Tennessee, a city of 609,000 residents.

Even so the advent of social media and inexpensive high-tech optics have boosted public awareness, assuring what many U.S. experts predict will be unprecedented viewership for the so-called “Great American Eclipse.”

Some might take issue with that prediction, citing a solar eclipse visible over parts of India, Nepal, Bangladesh and central China in July 2009. National Geographic estimated 30 million people in Shanghai and Hangzhou alone were in its path that day.

On Monday, the deepest part of the shadow, or umbra, cast by the moon will fall over a 70-mile-wide (113-km-wide), 2,500-mile-long (4,000-km-long) “path of totality” traversing 14 states. The 12 million people who live there can view the eclipse at its fullest merely by walking outside and looking up, weather permitting.

LIVESTREAMING AND PRICE-GOUGING

Some 200 million Americans reside within a day’s drive of the totality zone, and as many as 7 million, experts say, are expected to converge on towns and campgrounds along the narrow corridor for the event. Many are attending multi-day festivals featuring music, yoga and astronomy lectures.

Millions more could potentially watch in real time as the eclipse is captured by video cameras mounted on 50 high-altitude balloons and streamed online in a joint project between NASA and Montana State University. A partial eclipse will appear throughout North America.

Adding further to the excitement is the wide availability of affordable solar-safe sunglasses produced by the millions and selling so fast that suppliers were running out of stock.

The owner of one leading manufacturer reported price gouging by second-hand dealers who were buying up large supplies in and reselling them over the internet at a huge mark-up.

Not all the hoopla will unfold on dry land. Welsh pop singer Bonnie Tyler is slated to perform her 1983s hit single “Total Eclipse of the Heart” aboard a cruise liner as the vessel sails into the path of totality from Florida on Monday.

Back on the ground, forest rangers, police and city managers in the total eclipse zone are bracing for a crush of travelers they fear will cause epic traffic jams and heighten wildfire hazards.

“Imagine 20 Woodstock festivals occurring simultaneously across the nation,” Michael Zeiler, an AAS advisory panel member wrote on his website, GreatAmericanEclipse.com, referring to the famously chaotic 1969 outdoor rock extravaganza in upstate New York.

Zeiler, an avowed “eclipse chaser” who made the 650-mile (1,046 km) drive from his New Mexico home to Wyoming for a choice view, said South Carolina is likely to see the greatest influx as the destination state closest to the entire U.S. Eastern seaboard.

Monday’s event will be the first total solar eclipse spanning the entire continental United States since 1918 and the first visible anywhere in the Lower 48 states in 38 years.

The next one over North America is due in just seven years, in April 2024.

(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Frank McGurty and Sandra Maler)

Self-sufficient eclipse chasers hit the road to ‘totality’

Solar eclipse sunglasses are pictured in Los Angeles, California, U.S., August 8, 2017. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni

By Laura Zuckerman

(Reuters) – Michael Zeiler packed his portable toilet then headed out on a 10-hour drive from New Mexico to Wyoming where, on Monday, he intends to mark the ninth time he has seen the moon pass in front of the sun in a total solar eclipse.

Zeiler is a self-described “eclipse chaser,” part of a group of avid astronomy buffs, telescope hobbyists and amateur photographers whose passion for such celestial events takes them to the far corners of the earth.

For the first coast-to-coast total solar eclipse in the United States in almost a century, and the first visible anywhere in the Lower 48 states since 1979, Zeiler had only to drive some 650 miles (1,046 km) from the desert Southwest to the Rockies.

He showed up prepared and early on Wednesday at his destination in Casper, Wyoming, within the “path of totality,” the corridor over which the moon’s 70-mile-wide shadow will be cast as it crosses the United States over 93 minutes.

Along that path at the height of the eclipse on Aug. 21, the sun will be completely blotted out except for its outer atmosphere, known as the corona.

Zeiler, 61, is a full-time cartographer for a Santa Fe software company and part-time evangelist for the upcoming solar-lunar show, using the website greatamericaneclipse.com that he developed with his wife, Polly White, 54.

“This will be the most amazing event you have seen in your life,” said Zeiler, who has traveled the world since the early 1990s to experience the darkening of the sky, the sun’s “diamond ring” effect at the moment before totality, its glowing corona and the emergence of stars in daytime.

Zeiler and White are ready to change plans if their research the day before the eclipse shows clouds or smoke are likely to obscure skies in Casper.

“We’re not only packing to be sure we’re self-sufficient but also mobile,” White said. “If we need to move a couple hundred miles in one direction, we’ll do it.”

In addition to their portable toilet and ample supplies of food and water, they brought along sleeping bags and tents, which give them flexibility to change venues.

Zeiler, a member of a task force assembled by the American Astronomical Society to provide input on the event, will be one of millions of people to catch a rare glimpse of a total eclipse. Millions more across the United States will be able to see a partial eclipse, weather permitting.

Zeiler recalled witnessing his first total solar eclipse in 1991 from Mexico’s Baja peninsula.

“You have two bittersweet emotions right after the eclipse ends: giddiness from the sheer beauty of it and regret that it’s over. And the only question you have in that moment is, ‘Where and when is the next one?'” he said.

(Reporting by Laura Zuckerman in Salmon, Idaho; Editing by Steve Gorman, Toni Reinhold)

Forest rangers, fire crews brace for eclipse watchers to descend on U.S. West

Forest rangers, fire crews brace for eclipse watchers to descend on U.S. West

By Laura Zuckerman

SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) – Forest rangers and fire managers across the U.S. West will be on high alert as motorists flock to Oregon, Idaho and Wyoming for next week’s total solar eclipse, clogging roads and straining scarce resources at the height of summer wildfire season.

The rare spectacle of the moon passing directly in front the sun, combined with the appeal of the West’s great outdoors, is expected to draw tens of thousands of eclipse enthusiasts to rugged, remote national forests and rangelands from the Cascades to the Northern Rockies.

Authorities face an unprecedented challenge from the throngs in a region swathed in tinder-dry vegetation vulnerable to ignition from unattended campfires, discarded cigarettes and hot tailpipes.

“It’s all hands on deck,” said U.S. Forest Service ranger Kurt Nelson, who works in the Sawtooth National Forest near the affluent resort of Sun Valley in central Idaho.

Even without the added threat of careless humans, lightning-sparked wildfires are common at this time of year, raising fears that larger-than-normal crowds of tourists may end up in harm’s way and need to be evacuated.

U.S. fire managers last week elevated the nation’s wildfire readiness status to its highest for the first time in two years, citing heightened danger from thunderstorms.

Besides public safety issues confronting officials, drifting plumes of smoke, even from distant blazes, could end up obscuring the views of eclipse watchers on an otherwise clear day.

The Aug. 21 event marks the first total solar eclipse visible anywhere in the lower 48 states since 1979.

And it will be the first in 99 years spanning the entire continental United States, offering a brief glimpse of the sun completely blotted out – except for the corona of its outer atmosphere – across a 70-mile- (113-km-) wide, coast-to-coast path through 14 states.

Oregon, Idaho and Wyoming are the first three states traversed by the narrow 2,500-mile (4,000-km) “path of totality,” mostly through rural areas unaccustomed to heavy traffic.

BUMPER-TO-BUMPER TRAFFIC

Roads through Idaho’s Sawtooth, for example, are likely to see bumper-to-bumper traffic in the days before and during the eclipse, Nelson said.

That has prompted a regional hospital to park a life-flight helicopter nearby in case of a medical emergency. Extra firefighting crews are also on standby.

Months of bone-dry heat have already brought restrictions on campfires and smoking in many Western forests. But authorities see the fire risks ratcheting up with the influx of travelers, few of whom may understand the dangers.

A wildfire in Oregon’s Willamette National Forest prompted the closure this month of access to Mount Jefferson, the state’s second-highest peak and a would-be destination for those hoping to see the total eclipse, said Kirk Copic, visitor services information assistant for the forest.

First responders may not be able to help travelers as quickly as in a normal situation, Idaho State Police spokesman Tim Marsano warned, adding, “The 911 system is going to be pushed to its limit.”

In the Sawtooth alone, forest rangers expect as many as 30,000 people to inundate an area around the small town of Stanley, home to just 68 year-round residents.

Nelson said the grass has been mowed down in eight eclipse-viewing areas set up for the public, to ensure fire-safe temporary roadside parking.

Smoke from wildfires already burning in Idaho, Oregon, Montana and elsewhere could impair eclipse-viewing for some, but forecasters say smoke conditions, driven largely by wind speeds and direction, will remain uncertain until a day or two before.

The sun will be so high in the sky that smoke should be of little consequence, unless it’s extremely thick, said Michael Zeiler, an avowed “eclipse-chaser” who made a 650-mile (1,000- km) drive, to Casper, Wyoming from his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in hopes of witnessing his ninth total solar eclipse.

“This will be the most amazing event you have seen in your life,” said Zeiler, a member of an American Astronomical Society panel for public guidance.

(Reporting by Laura Zuckerman in Salmon, Idaho; Editing by Steve Gorman and Clarence Fernandez)