AUSTIN, Texas — April 8 is the day we have all been waiting for! A total solar eclipse will pass directly over the KVUE area, bringing more than four minutes of dazzling totality to parts of the Hill Country. Unfortunately, confidence is now high that the majority of the KVUE area will be under a mostly cloudy sky during totality.
Before we get into the details of the forecast, we want to emphasize that the eclipse will still happen even if it’s cloudy, and it will still be a cool experience. During totality, cloudy or not, the sky will darken across Central Texas. In fact, it may even be slightly darker than it would be under a clear sky.
The unfortunate part about the clouds is they will make it much harder to view the solar corona, Bailey’s Beads and many of the coolest features of the total solar eclipse.
Below you can find the latest projections for cloud cover percentages at the time of totality. Totality in Austin is at 1:36 p.m.
Low clouds will be widespread Monday morning as humidity from the Gulf Coast surges back into Central Texas. These low clouds will likely be stubborn even into the time of totality in the early afternoon. This is why we have a mostly cloudy sky in the forecast.
With that being said, the low clouds will break up in some lucky spots. It’s impossible to know exactly where this could happen, but the highest likelihood looks like the Hill Country. Where low clouds break up, viewing conditions will be much better for the eclipse.
There will still be high clouds that will filter the view, but the sun will be visible through these thin clouds made up of small ice crystals. Overall, the low clouds will be problematic, but brief breaks in the clouds should give little glimpses of the eclipse and, in some spots, the clouds could break up enough to give decent viewing!
For most, though, the clouds will largely obstruct the view. It is worth noting that some other high-resolution forecast models are not as optimistic. As of Monday morning, the HRRR model paints a bleaker picture for cloud coverage with stubborn low-level clouds for all Central Texas.
The chance of rain during totality is only 10%. However, shortly after the eclipse, we will turn our attention to a severe weather risk from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. Monday. Storms won’t be widespread, so not everyone will see rain, but where storms do form, they could be severe.
There is a level 2 severe weather risk from the Storm Prediction Center for almost all of Central Texas Monday afternoon. Large hail, strong winds and an isolated tornado will be possible.
The KVUE Weather Team will be closely monitoring this developing forecast.
In the meantime, the extended forecast can be found below:
