Total solar eclipse to cross U.S. two years from today

Posted: Apr 8, 2022 / 01:20 PM CDT

Updated: Apr 8, 2022 / 01:37 PM CDT

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CHICAGO — Mark your calendars, a total solar eclipse will stretch from Texas to Maine on April 8, 2024. It will bring “totality” back to southern Illinois and within a three-hour drive of Chicago as it crosses Indiana.

Many will recall the Great American Eclipse of 2017, when for the first time in 99 years a total solar eclipse, when the moon blocks out the sun, crossed the U.S. from coast to coast.

Carbondale was along the path of totality then and it will be again in 2024.

Traveling a different path from the 2017 eclipse, the 2024 total eclipse will be visible in Mexico, the central US and east Canada, with a partial eclipse visible across North and Central America.

Although the previous eclipse peaked over two minutes in the path of totality, the 2024 eclipse will have peaks of 4½ minutes and cover a wider area as it moves. In the United States, it will be visible in a diagonal path crossing from Texas to Maine, according to NASA.

Cities in the path of totality include:

Austin
Dallas
Little Rock
Indianapolis
Toledo
Cleveland
Akron
Buffalo
Rochester
Montpelier
Montreal

In Illinois, the path will trek from Chester to Paris beginning at 1:58 p.m. CT with Carbondale seeing a time of 4:08 in daytime black-out.

Once into Indiana, the path of totality will cut northwesterly across the state, reaching Indianapolis at 3:05 p.m. CT and blanketing the city in darkness for 3:49.

Given the planning by many in preparation for the 2017 eclipse, you might want to start making your hotel and travel arrangements now. What’s more, it will be another two-decades before the U.S. sees a similar event on August 12, 2045, though that one looks to cover an even larger swath of the country.