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“When is Kentucky ever the focus of the entire country?” you may ask. There have been recent times, but they are rare. Kentucky is the focus of the sports world when a basketball team from the state wins the NCAA title. Kentucky was a focus back in March of 2012 when the tornadoes struck eastern Kentucky.
Kentucky is sort of the focus on Derby Day, but that is an annual event. But Kentucky rarely has the nation’s focus like it will on August 21st, 2017; the Solar Eclipse day.
Solar Eclipses are extremely rare, so this is a special and exciting opportunity for plenty of communities across the western part of the state. WKU has cancelled the first day of classes to view this, several local school systems will be closed as well.
Previous/Future Solar Eclipses
Total solar eclipses are fairly rare here in the US! The last total eclipse that occurred anywhere on US soil was in 1991, and that was clouded out in Hawaii. The last total that occurred across a large portion of the country was back in 1918! If you hadn’t realized it, that was a loooooong time ago. The last total that affected Kentucky was back in August of 1869!
This has been a long time coming for the state, and I know people are excited about it. This is one of a couple that will occur near the region during a 10 year timeframe! The next will take its path of totality near Evansville and through southern Indiana and Illinois.
The next closest total eclipse to the state of Kentucky will move through southern Ohio in September of 2099. So after these upcoming two, you’ll have to wait a while if you want to stay here and see an eclipse. I would be 103 years old at that point!
Best Places To View This
You may wonder: why is Kentucky the focus if this will be traveling across much of the Lower 48? Well, a spot just to the northwest of Hopkinsville, Kentucky will have the greatest area of Eclipse, which is a big deal considering these are rare in the US.
If you can’t get to Hopkinsville, however, there are plenty of places close to BG that will have long totality periods. Russellville, Franklin, and much of Northern Tennessee will be within the path of totality. Additionally, Bowling Green will see totality as well! It won’t last as long as the other areas, but if you want to stay in town, you’ll see a total eclipse for 1 minute and 13 seconds.
Cities and total eclipse length:
- Bowling Green: 1m 13s
- Franklin: 2m 26s
- Russellville: 2m 29s
- Hopkinsville: 2m 40s
- Nashville: 1m 52s
- Gallatin, TN: 2m 39s
As you can see, if you want to see the total eclipse for a long time, you’ll have plenty of options that are close.
Potential Weather Conditions
This was ultimately coming. Everything can go right for a total eclipse to work, but the weather can completely screw things up. NOAA put together a very cool resource that gives a map of the eclipse, and uses 10 year hourly climatology data to gather a percentage chance that the eclipse will be affected by clouds. According to the climatology, Bowling Green has a 29% of cloudiness, and Paducah has a 23% of cloudiness. This is much better than Nashville’s, where there is a 66% chance of cloudiness affecting the eclipse.
Now, those numbers have no influence on what will happen this year. However, those do indicate what has happened in the past. Those number look at cloud cover per hour, but to give you a better picture of general weather that has occurred in the past 30 years in BG, I made a nice chart for ya.
BG hasn’t seen significant precipitation very often on these days, with multiple days of trace precip and only a few days with significant precip (indicating a system or thunderstorms). That is encouraging, and should make you more excited for this event!
As we approach the date itself, be prepared for it. Read up on it, and mentally prepare for A LOT of people to show up in southern and western KY for a couple of days. This is truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for southern Kentucky residents.