Total Solar Eclipse 2024: Where Were You?

Fifty million people may have seen the “Great North American Eclipse” of April 8, 2024, but the place they did it wasn’t where they expected it to be. Texas was supposed to welcome a million visitors and a $1.4 billion infusion, but the highways were mostly empty and there were perhaps only 270,000 visitors. In contrast, New Hampshire, where only 450 eclipse chasers were expected, saw almost 170,000 additional vehicles descend.

Inaccurate predictions

One reason the forecasts have been inaccurate is the weather. On April 8, many places where historical data suggested clear skies were actually cloudy, and vice versa. The cloud map for April 8 was completely unexpected. “You couldn’t, even if you were Satan himself, design a better map,” said Gordon Emslie, a professor in the department of physics and astronomy at Western Kentucky University and the head of the SunSketcher, which measures the shape of the solar limb using photos taken via an app.

Many had initially opted for Texas. “Texas attendance was moderate because everyone knew a week in advance that the weather forecast was tough,” said Michael Zeiler, a Santa Fe-based eclipse cartographer for GreatAmericanEclipse.com, whose website is based in Santa Fe. Visitation estimates for the eclipse “This resulted in massive attendance that far exceeded my expectations in upstate New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.”

The shortest paths

Zeiler’s model calculated the shortest travel distances between more than 3,000 U.S. counties and destinations in the path of totality, using ArcGIS software, U.S. Census data, and a detailed digital road network for the United States. He assumed that people living near the path of totality were more likely to visit than those farther away. He also assumed that people would travel the shortest driving distance to reach the path of totality. Zeiler estimated that Texas would be the most popular destination, with about a million visitors, followed by Indiana and Ohio, with half a million each.

Texas had the best chance of clear skies. On this day, it was mostly cloudy. “The lesson I take away for eclipse-watchers is that weather is everything,” Zeiler said. Forecasts for Indiana and Ohio, where skies were clear, held true. Indiana reported 3.5 million visitors, well above expectations, as did New York, where nearly a million people visited New York State Parks and half a million people unexpectedly flocked to the Adirondacks.

Unrealistic expectations

Many states have made wild predictions of millions of visitors, only to be completely wrong. This always happens during total solar eclipses, which occur about once every 18 months somewhere in the world. The most striking example in 2024 was Arkansas, which predicted 1.5 million visitors. The Natural State disappointed, reporting little traffic on the roads. “I talked to a reporter in Arkansas about it and told him that’s not realistic,” Zeiler said.

He had estimated that Arkansas would welcome between 84,000 and 337,000 eclipse chasers. That was despite the clear weather that day, which caused many eclipse chasers to leave Texas. “The biggest factor in attracting a lot of visitors is proximity to major metropolitan areas, and in Arkansas, there aren’t a lot of those,” Zeiler said, noting that major cities like St. Louis and Chicago drew a lot of people to the eclipse path.

Exceeding expectations

Despite the unpredictable geographic variations, it is likely that more people than expected moved to be within the eclipse path. On April 8, a 115-mile-wide path of totality crossed North America, from northern Mexico to southeastern Canada, passing through parts of 15 U.S. states. While about 12 million people live within the path in Mexico and Canada, in the United States, there are more than 32 million people. That’s 44 million people living within the path. Zeiler predicted that between 931,000 and 3.7 million more people would move from outside the path of totality on the day of the eclipse in the United States.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that the number of people who came to see the eclipse was higher than that figure, perhaps as many as 50 million. “It’s pretty clear to me that overall, looking at the entire route, more people came to see the eclipse than I expected, which was about four million,” Zeiler said. “I’m pretty confident that it was over four million, but the data is incomplete.” Estimates from several states have been based on traffic counts using a multiplier of 2.8 people per car.

Live broadcast

The total figure could have been higher if not for the explosion of livestreams over 5G cellular networks, which technically wasn’t as easy during the “Great American Eclipse” of 2017, when 3G and 4G networks dominated. AT&T reported that more than 1.1 billion MMS messages including photos and videos were sent on April 8. Aside from personal livestreams via 5G smartphones, NASA’s livestream on YouTube on April 8 was viewed nearly 12 million times, albeit worldwide.

“I think it affected this eclipse a little bit because there were so many people live-streaming it from different locations along the way,” said Polly White of GreatAmericanEclipse.com. “Some of them would have always had a clearer view, you can’t guarantee anything.” White had previously compared the event to having 50 Super Bowls happening at once across the country.

Lessons for the 2040s

The next total solar eclipses in the United States will occur in 2044 and 2045. Can the next generation learn from 2024? Perhaps not. Assuming that people will make logical decisions when traveling in the path of totality is a fiction. “A lot of people who come from out of state don’t know the roads and can make bad decisions,” Laurie Radow, a retired transportation specialist with the Federal Highway Administration, said of traffic issues. That won’t change, but what will change is technology. “Today’s driver doesn’t know how much transportation has changed in the last 15 or 20 years,” she said, referring to variable message lines and sensors on the road. “But I can’t tell you what’s going to happen in the next 20 years. … I wouldn’t dare tell you what the technology will be in three years.”

There’s also the question of whether people will actually want to take a trip to experience totality. If VR headsets like the Apple Vision Pro are anywhere near as good as the real thing by then — or are perceived to be — then the number of visitors could be even lower. “You don’t have to go there anymore!” White said. “With VR, people will say, ‘I don’t need to travel just for a few minutes of totality.’” Whether VR takes off or not, the nature of the interaction with the content will likely be different. “The whole notion of the internet could be very different by then,” Zeiler said. “It’s going to be very different — an immersive spatial experience.”

Pick up my books Stargazing in 2024, A Stargazing Program for Beginners And When will the next eclipse occur?

I wish you clear skies and wide eyes.