2024 solar eclipse: San Diego to have best view of solar eclipse in California

SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) — San Diegans will get the luck of the draw during the 2024 solar eclipse as the city will have the best view in the entire state.

While the West Coast won’t see the sun completely disappear, us here in San Diego will see about 60 to 65% of the eclipse, making it the best place to view the solar eclipse in California.

The April 8, 2024 total solar eclipse will be visible across North America. In the U.S., the path of visibility will start in Texas and continue northeast through Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine.

Unlike in past years, the 2024 solar eclipse will be at least partially visible throughout all 48 contiguous states.

In Northern California, visibility will be around 30%, and that gets better as you move south. Those in San Francisco will have around 45% visibility, while Los Angeles residents will see around 57% of the eclipse.

View an interactive map of California below for the exact time when the eclipse will begin, and what percentage of the sun will be covered in your city:

Mexico’s Pacific coast will see the total eclipse first at around 11:07 a.m. PDT on Monday, April 8.

Here in San Diego, we will be able to see the solar eclipse starting around 10:03 a.m. The eclipse, or what we will be able to see in this part of the U.S., will peak at 11:11 a.m., with the entire event ending by 12:23 p.m.

A total solar eclipse happens when the moon passes between the sun and the earth, completely blocking out the sun for those in the direct path, according to NASA.

In other parts of the country that are in the path of full totality, hotel rooms have been selling like crazy since early last year like in Erie, Pennsylvania, a town of just under 100,000, where they are hoping the national spotlight will help boost long-term tourism. One Texas county even declared a state of emergency in an effort to handle the hordes of total solar eclipse viewers who are expected to descend on the state. Officials are expecting Bell County’s population of 400,000 to double, if not triple, in the days leading up to the eclipse. 

It is never safe to look directly at the sun, so there are special viewing glasses you need to wear if you’re planning to look up. It’s also important to note you can’t take a photo of the solar eclipse with your phone or camera as the sunlight can damage your camera lens without the right gear.

After the April 2024 solar eclipse, NASA says the next one viewable from the entire U.S. won’t happen again until Aug. 23, 2044.

The last total solar eclipse we saw here in the U.S. was in August 2017 (yes, it was seven years ago) where visibility was also around 60% for those in San Diego.

Scientists take away a lot from eclipses. NASA says scientists can use a total solar eclipse to study the sun’s outer atmosphere, or corona. Eclipses can also help us find exoplanets around stars in other planetary systems.

The 2024 total solar eclipse is part of NASA’s Heliophysics Big Year, a global celebration of solar science and the sun’s influence on Earth and the entire solar system. 

As it’s mostly sunny here in San Diego we should be in for a treat, but cloud cover could obstruct our view, so keep an eye on the weather at fox5sandiego.com/weather as April 8 approaches.