Hudson Valley Enjoys The Almost Total Solar Eclipse

CARMEL, NY — The solar eclipse gave schoolchildren in Mahopac an unusual after-school activity.

Fifth graders at Austin Road School studied up on the astronomy beforehand.

"The moon is passing between the sun and the earth," explained Troy Stobbe, who with his sister Sienna and neighbors Samantha and AJ Lange got off the school bus with their eclipse glasses on.

At totality — which in Mahopac was about 92 percent — the sun was the shape of a fingernail clipping, though there was enough dim sunlight to cast shadows. The birds went quiet and peepers in a nearby vernal pool began, briefly, to sing.

"It's an eerie light," said mom Alyssa Stobbe as the kids gazed up at the sky.

In Rockland County, folks enjoyed the mild temperatures as they watched.

The total solar eclipse started in Mexico, entering the United States in Texas and visible along a path through Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, as well as small parts of Tennessee and Michigan, before entering Canada in southern Ontario through Quebec, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Cape Breton.

"That is cool," said a postal worker, borrowing a pair of eclipse glasses and sticking her head out of the truck window briefly before moving on to the next mailbox.