Eclipse Anecdotalia

Oh, forgot! What was Hopper’s amateur scientific observations during the overclouded total solar eclipse?

Well, my observances are kinda skewed due to the extremely heavy cloud cover. Ideally, there wouldn’t be a cloud in the sky and the ambient effects of the eclipse would be more obviously correlation does imply causation. But not so.

Also, we were not strict Victorian men of science here. I forgot to log the temperature earlier in the day, something I had half a (nerdy) mind to do.

That being said –

The wife had checked the temperature during her morning walk around 10 am. It was 88 degrees. We had presence of mind to re-check during totality, and it was 83 degrees. On a hot summer day, the temperature dropped five degrees from 10 am to 2:45 pm. In fact, it may have actually been warmer when the eclipse started, around 1 pm. Maybe it went from 90 or 91 to 83, a seven or eight degree drop. But that’s just speculation.

Now, concerning the dimming of the surrounding light … purely and subjectively anecdotal, but, I suggested the guesstimate – and the wife confirmed – that during totality it appeared to be dark to us as it normally is around 8:15 at night. (The sun normally sets around here around 8:30 and it’s dark by 8:45-8:50.)

The wind also seemed to pick up, but then again we were on the beach with dark, heavy clouds overhead. It was hard to distinguish what were eclipse effects verses what were impending potential thunderstorm effects. Possibly – probably – we experienced a mixture of both.

Still, though, it was cool, and a little eerie, clouds or no clouds. Though no clouds next time, please.