2024 Solar Eclipse In Virginia, DC: What You Need To Know For April 8

VIRGINIA — Excitement is building in Virginia for Monday’s 2024 total solar eclipse, a celestial phenomenon that Americans won’t see again for two decades.

Only our yellow star’s spiky corona will be visible in the 15 states in the path of totality, which extends from Texas to Maine in the United States. We’ll see a less dramatic blockage of the sun in the Commonwealth with about 88 percent totality as the moon slips between the sun and Earth, according to a searchable NASA map.

Below is your complete guide to viewing the sun’s disappearing act in DC and Virginia:

When You’ll See What

Here are the eclipse times to keep in mind on Monday (all times local):

• Partial eclipse begins: 2:04 p.m.
• Totality begins: 2:46 p.m.
• Maximum: 3:20 p.m.
• Totality ends: 3:55 p.m.
• Partial ends: 4:32 p.m.

What Will The Weather Be Like?

As of Friday, the National Weather Service forecast calls for mostly clear and sunny skies on Monday with a high of 60 degrees.

What’s Happening Around The Region?

• Fairfax County solar eclipse viewing events on April 8 include:
  • See Partial Solar Eclipse at Turner Farm Park: 1:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
  • Partial Solar Eclipse Celebration at Ellanor C. Lawrence Park: 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.
  • Partial Solar Eclipse Celebration at Burke Lake Park: 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.
  • Safely See Partial Solar Eclipse at Historic Huntley: 1:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
  • Solar Eclipse Viewing Party at Centreville Regional Library: 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.
  • View the Solar Eclipse at Sherwood Regional Library: 3 p.m. to 4 p.m.
  Oakton Library will also hold an educational event on April 2 from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. ahead of the solar eclipse. On March 30 from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m., Kings Park Library will hold solar eclipse viewer making.
• The Maryland Science Center, 601 Light St. in Baltimore, will host a watch party for the eclipse. The event is free to anyone with paid admission and will run from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
• Solar Eclipse Festival on the National Mall: Noon to 4 p.m.
• Virginia State Parks plans to host solar eclipse viewers at its 42 state parks around the commonwealth. At Woodbridge's Leesylvania State Park, eclipse viewing will start at 2:02 p.m., reach a peak of 86.7 percent coverage at 3:20 p.m. and end at 4:31 p.m.
• Other Prince William County solar eclipse viewing events on April 8 include:
  • Solar Eclipse Family Day at Manassas National Battlefield Park: 12 p.m.
  • Solar Eclipse Party at Manassas City Library: 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.

Be Sure To Protect Your Eyes

Except during the brief total phase of a total solar eclipse, when the sun’s face is completely obscured by the moon, it is not safe to look directly at the sun without protective eye equipment, according to NASA.

The American Astronomical Society has a list of vendors whose eclipse glasses have been certified as safe. The organization specifically warns against bargain hunting for eclipse glasses from online marketplaces such as Amazon, eBay or Temu because counterfeit glasses have infiltrated retail chains. Wherever you acquire protective eyewear, it should meet or exceed the international safety standard of ISO 12312-2:2015.

• Related: You Must Protect Your Eyes, Regardless Of Eclipse Totality: What You Need

Keep this in mind, too: Viewing any part of the bright sun through a camera lens, binoculars, or a telescope without a special-purpose solar filter secured over the front of the optics will instantly cause severe eye injury.

One other safe way to view the eclipse is with a do-it-yourself pinhole projector that shows the sun on a nearby surface. The American Astronomical Society has pinhole projector DIY instructions.

A Bigger Deal Than 2017

The duration of totality in the United States will be up to 4 minutes and 24 seconds in Eagle Pass, Texas, beginning at 1:27 p.m. CDT. For comparison, the eclipse reaches totality about an hour later, at 3:29 p.m. EDT in Jackman, Maine, and lasts about 3 minutes and 26 seconds.

Totality will last twice as long as in the coast-to-coast solar eclipse in 2017, and the number of people in the path of totality — an estimated 32 million people — is much greater.

Besides Texas and Maine, states seeing totality include Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont and New Hampshire.

• Related: The 2024 Great American Solar Eclipse Is A Really Big Deal: Here’s Why

Eclipse Opens Scientific Window

Another thing that makes the 2024 solar eclipse markedly different from the 2017 event is that it’s occurring as the sun is at its peak activity cycle, called solar maximum. In 2017, the sun was approaching minimum. This year’s eclipse opens a unique window for scientists to study the sun’s corona.

“The eclipse that we have coming up in 2024 is going to be a very different eclipse from what we saw in 2017 because this corona that we see is going to have much more structure,” Lisa Upton, a solar scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, told Scientific American.

The violent solar storms occurring right now are responsible for auroras that dance far outside their Arctic and Antarctic ranges but also carry the potential to knock out internet satellites for months, take down power grids, and interfere with navigation satellites. Right now, these events happen with little warning, but scientists are working on their ability to predict space weather.

• Related: 2024 Guide To Meteor Showers, Solar Eclipse, Supermoons And More

When Is The Next Eclipse?

It will be March 30, 2033, before another total solar eclipse touches the United States, and that’s only on the tip of Alaska. It’ll be Aug. 12, 2044, before the next eclipse sweeps across the lower 48 states, with parts of Montana and North Dakota experiencing totality.

Don’t Worry About This

Legends in ancient cultures attributed the temporary disappearance of the sun to celestial dragons and other mythical creatures, wolves and even giant frogs who either ate the sun or stole it. Among some cultures, the solar eclipse was a foreboding sign the gods were angry or that the siblings the sun and the moon were quarreling, according to timeanddate.com. In many cultures, “eclipse” means to eat.

Among the Pomo, an indigenous group of people who lived in the Northwest United States, the literal translation of “eclipse” is “got bit by a bear.” The legend is that a bear mixed it up with the sun and took a bite out of it and then decided to have a slice of the moon as well, causing a lunar eclipse.

• Related: Animals May Behave Oddly During Eclipse

Scientists and astronomers long ago solved the riddle of the solar eclipse — it’s simply what happens when the moon masks the sun as it passes in front of it. Still, some superstitions remain in modern culture, including that solar eclipses are dangerous for pregnant women and their unborn children, or that food cooked during an eclipse is poisonous.

In Italy, though, the superstitions aren’t as gloomy as the sky when the moon blots out the sun. Instead, the eclipse is prime flower planting time; it’s believed they will bloom brighter and more colorful than flowers planted at other times of the year. Other claims about negative effects on human behavior have been debunked by scientists.