CLEVELAND — Just one year from this weekend, on April 8, 2024, Northeast Ohio will be a prime viewing spot for the Solar eclipse, because it sits in the path of totality.
This phenomenon doesn’t come often. In fact, the last time Ohio had a total solar eclipse was in 1806, and the next time the city will be in this position will be in 2444. That's why the Great Lakes Science Center has been eagerly coordinating for the celestial sighting since last year.
On Monday, April 8, 2024, at around 3:00 p.m. the moon will completely block out the sun for about four minutes in Cleveland, which is one of the longest duration for major cities in the path.
“It's going to look dark. I mean, in the path of totality, the beauty is there is no sun, it’ll be totally dark here,” said Scott Vollmer, the vice president of education and exhibits at the Great Lakes Science Center.
When it happens, you can't look directly at the sun, so the science center has a few options — lenses that reflect the eclipse on a screen, or solar eclipse glasses.
In 2017, Cleveland was in the path of a partial eclipse and there was a major turnout.
“There were 10s of thousands of people on the North Coast Harbor because it’s the perfect place to watch a solar eclipse,” said Vollmer.
They are expecting a similar amount, if not more, next year on the green space for their Eclipse Festival, which is why Destination Cleveland has been gearing up for those exact tourists for years.
“Those are great events for us because, one, they bring people here, two, they help put Cleveland on a national and a world stage,” said Emily Lauer with Destination Cleveland.
Over the past decade, Cleveland has kept its reputation as one of the fastest-growing cities.
“For nine straight years, we beat the national growth rate for visitation, we were just shy of 20 million visitors in 2019,” said Lauer.
Though the number dipped coming out of the pandemic, it's been on the rise. Lauer says a solar eclipse the same weekend they are hosting the NCAA Women’s Final 4 is the perfect combo.
“Any visitor is an influx of money to Cleveland and the more of those visitors we can get, the better off our economy is going to be,” said Lauer.
So, they've been working with places across Ohio, including the Natural History Museum, NASA, and, of course, the Great Lakes Science Center, where this weekend the joy is out of this world as they begin to teach people how to watch the eclipse safely just a year out.
Destination Cleveland says expect solar eclipse events to be announced six to eight months out and hotels to begin booking in the next few months.
Watch live and local news any time:
Download the News 5 Cleveland app now for more stories from us, plus alerts on major news, the latest weather forecast, traffic information and much more. Download now on your Apple device here, and your Android device here.
You can also catch News 5 Cleveland on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, YouTube TV, DIRECTV NOW, Hulu Live and more. We're also on Amazon Alexa devices. Learn more about our streaming options here.
