Latest weather forecast for the April 8 Total Solar Eclipse
AUSTIN (KXAN) — It’s almost here, perhaps the most important weather forecast for the millions of people in the path of, or heading to the path of the 2024 Total Solar Eclipse. Many of those people are coming to Texas for a view.
KXAN will update this page daily with our First Warning Weather Team’s latest Central Texas forecast for April 8, along with weather updates for the rest of Texas. On the day, this page will receive multiple updates as conditions develop.
Current forecast for April 8
With a little less than a week until the celestial event, the forecast for the eclipse is looking mostly cloudy and potentially wet, though with multiple days between now and then the one thing we can assure you is that there will be modifications to this forecast, hopefully in favor of more clear skies.
As things stand, KXAN forecasts a mostly cloudy sky and a slight chance for rain/thunderstorms on Monday, April 8 throughout the 15 Central Texas counties that we cover.
With any luck, we could still get some breaks of sun during the afternoon and the potential for rain to hold off until later.
Cloud cover
Remember, it can be cloudy all day, but if the clouds break during totality, then you’re in good shape. The opposite is also true. One, large, poorly positioned cloud during a mostly sunny day can ruin totality.
As of late Monday afternoon the outlooks from both the American and the European models have changed … a lot!
Keep in mind these models will change a few times daily going forward.
Single model runs show one of several possibilities of what skies could look like come April 8.
Rain potential
Several of our longer-range computer models suggest 24-hour rainfall chances ending on April 8 at 7 p.m. are in the 40-60% range, which is actually rather high given how far off we are forecasting.
Our “best blend” model known as the NBM (National Blend of Models) is already spitting out a few tenths of an inch of measurable rainfall for most of Central Texas from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. on April 8.
From a more official standpoint the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center has most of Texas firmly in the “leaning wetter” for their 6-10 day rainfall forecast, which covers April 6-10.
Forecasting process and challenges
We want to let you into the process and why this is such a challenge.
We are forecasting for a less than five-minute period of time that’s several days away. If April 8 was mostly sunny, but one cloud covered the sun for those important few minutes, the solar eclipse would be considered “ruined” for many who wanted to view it unobstructed, regardless of what the weather was like for the whole day.
There’s little room for error, so we will only be as specific as we can be and feel comfortable being, especially this far out.
The weather, especially several days out, can and will change. As we spot those changes our forecast will change. You should expect it to change.
We would not recommend you change plans several days out, but let our forecast be a guide to help push you in the right direction with your best chances for being in the right spot to get the view you’re hoping for.
Weather forecasting has improved by leaps and bounds, but forecasting a five-minute window with specifics and 100% accuracy is not possible, especially several days out. If there is uncertainty or important trends, we will relay that, but meteorology is an imperfect science that, while improving, is not as accurate as we all want it to be.
Timing is everything
The time period that matters? April 8 from roughly noon-3 p.m. marks the entire length of the eclipse, including partial eclipse and totality for Central Texas.
The *most* important time is generally from 1:30 p.m.-1:40 p.m. on April 8.
In Austin, specifically, totality begins just after 1:36 p.m. and ends just before 1:38 p.m.
How specific will we get?
Here’s how we plan on forecasting for the eclipse responsibly:
Now through Friday, April 5: We will forecast for April 8 with a general cloud cover forecast for the day and rain chances for the day. We may be able to gauge if those rain chances are for early or later in the day, but it would be harder to be more specific than that with any accuracy
Saturday, April 6 to Sunday, April 7: Forecasting hour by hour for April 8, but with some uncertainty over the exact cloud cover during the critical five-minute period of concern.
Monday, April 8: Our best forecast possible with several updates during the morning and midday about where any potential cloud cover is setting up and any last-minute adjustments
Texas’ Path of Totality
Here’s a reminder of the eclipse path through Texas. In between the red lines will experience totality. The center line will experience totality the longest.
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