Cloud threatens Norway’s decade’s biggest solar eclipse

Cloudy weather could obscure Wednesday’s extensive solar eclipse for many people in Norway, Dagbladet reports. Astrophysicist Knut Jørgen Røed Ødegaard says he will not give up hope before the event is over.

The eclipse will last about one hour and 50 minutes as the Moon passes in front of the Sun, according to Himmelkalenderen. The exact timing and extent will vary across Norway. The maximum phase will occur between 7.30pm and 8pm, with 81 to 85 percent of the Sun obscured on the Norwegian mainland and up to 91 percent on Svalbard.

It is the first extensive solar eclipse visible in Norway since 2015. However, cloudy weather is forecast across large parts of the country.

Røed Ødegaard is travelling to Atlanterhavsparken in Ålesund, where he is due to give a lecture and watch the eclipse. Rain and grey skies are forecast there.

“I will not give up before it is over,” he says, noting that the eclipse will be visible for more than an hour.

“A lot can happen during that time, and it also depends on how thick the clouds are,” he says.

If the weather prevents observations in Ålesund, the organisers have a backup plan involving a livestream. Røed Ødegaard says it would be especially spectacular to see the sunset and the eclipse over the sea to the northwest if the weather improves.

He says the forecast is not necessarily worse in Ålesund than elsewhere, since grey skies and rain are expected across much of Norway.

“It is rare to have high pressure over the whole country, but I think we could have afforded that today,” he says with a laugh.

Clear skies in some places

Røed Ødegaard says people in some parts of the country will almost certainly see the eclipse. He has spoken to people in Vardø in Finnmark and Lindesnes in southern Norway, where the weather is currently clear.

He also points out that Norway’s varied terrain can produce significant weather differences between nearby locations.

The eclipse begins at 5.34pm, reaches its maximum at 7.46pm and ends at 9.58pm. It will be total along a narrow strip stretching from eastern parts of the Taymyr Peninsula and the Laptev Sea in Siberia, across the Arctic Ocean, eastern Greenland, western Iceland, the Atlantic Ocean and northern Spain before ending in the Mediterranean near Mallorca.

The Perseid meteor shower also reaches its peak on the same day, making it most visible.

For those who miss the solar eclipse, Røed Ødegaard points to a nearly total lunar eclipse on August 28.