Anyone else have their eclipse viewing ruined by clouds?

I had an entire planet in my way, didn’t see a damn thing.

Moon's not a planet. It's a moon that is orbiting a planet.

Edit: I'm big dum dum
- I’m in the southern hemisphere. The entire planet earth was in my way. :-)
- Unless he was in Australia, then that damn fat Earth was in the way.

You are literally Old Man Yells at Cloud

Aren't we all?

Hamilton, up on the escarpment. Clouds were rolling through but it cleared enough to get this. Buddy used his eclipse glasses to capture this, I have a few shots without the glasses and the shots don't look half as good.

Buddy used his eclipse glasses to capture this

If he had used his eclipse glasses, you would see nothing. Eclipse glasses are for the lead up to full totality. Once totality hits, you take them off, as well as any camera filters you might be using. The light from the fully blocked sun is too dim to see through solar filters.
- I thought as much but all of my pictures were drastically brighter and I couldn't replicate what he did. We have essentially the same phone so I assumed the glasses played a role in how dark it was
Sometimes a little cloud cover makes viewing the eclipse even better. I wasn’t too far away from the totality last year and saw this one:

Both shot with my mirrorless cropped from 200mm.
Well hello there. I'm closer to Niagara but in the same general area.

We had some clouds, but otherwise it was a good experience. Nice picture.

Southern Texas checking in. I saw the sun twice for a total of six seconds. My city was within the path of totality, so I got to watch thousands of disappointed visitors block our highways.

I drove hundreds of miles to glen rose to get clear skies. gotta keep mobile

Mine was ruined by traffic and my clutch burning out due to the +8 hour traffic. currently waiting for a tow =(

Traffic fucked us here too. Left with what I thought was plenty of extra time. An hour into the drive and another hour had been added to the GPS. Turned around at that point because we just weren't going to make it.

Be me, Canadian
Hear about big important eclipse
Go outside, waiting for sun to get covered
Big cloud comes and covers sun
mfw exactly what I was expecting happens
Sorry

During the peak, clouds rolled in in the Philly area. I was able to see it on and off, but missed most of the peak except for a few second here or there. Sounds like others had it much worse than I did though, so I can't complain.

Yes in East Tennessee. Totally cloud covered and raining to boot.

And then it seemed to clear up right when the eclipse was over!
We'll always have 2017. That was epic.

I was outside the path of totality, but saw one during my childhood. Today I made a pinhole camera and took a quick look before my meeting started and was able to see the shadow of the moon maybe 50%-60% over the sun. When I came back out after my meeting it was cloudy.

Sorry you had clouds :-(

I complain but it was still a great experience :)

I was in Erie PA, which was in the totality. It was mostly cloudy until like 1:30ish. It cleared up enough to watch the moon creep up and the totality, then the clouds came back a couple minutes after. It was really the perfect window. I consider myself very lucky, because the next one that's going to come anywhere near me is gonna be in like, 50 years.

the sky was clear for about an hour before totality, and then about 15 minutes before, a big dark cloud came in and ruined it.

Yup, that was exactly my experience too (in northern France in August 1999).

In 1999 I spent a week in Cornwall (south western tip of the UK), staying in a spot right in the middle of the path of totality for the eclipse that summer. Every day, glorious sunshine, even got a bit burnt. Except one day. Day of the eclipse was thick clouds horizon to horizon. Ended up watching the BBC coverage from an aircraft via a 3" portable TV.

Did get to see the approaching shadow over the ocean, so at least that was pretty cool, but still disappointing.

Don't think I'll have another opportunity in my lifetime unless I travel internationally specifically to see one.

While we don't have another total one in the UK until 2090, we've got a near-total one in August 2026. About 90-95% depend on where in the country you are, with Cornwall getting the best of it again. Spain and Iceland get the totality of it, so you could take a short trip to some pretty nice places and catch it along the way
Next total eclipse in the UK is 2090, unfortunately.

In Aug 2026 there's a 90% one though. And if you travel to the right part of Spain for that one it's another Total.

Shockingly it was a clear beautiful day in Akron Ohio. I’m shocked, tbh.

Yeah I saw it west of Cleveland. A little hazy at times but didn't affect the experience much
- Saw it in the metroparks at Stinchcomb. We really lucked out, great view!

I was in the 90% range. I tried to find the sun and couldn't, although someone who was a few miles away said they saw part of it.

I was already on a trip, and to stay to see the eclipse in Texas was going to cost me an extra two grand in plane tickets so I left. Turns out in Texas, it was thunderstorms all day. Back home I got to see a whopping 3% eclipse instead of thunderstorms. Wowee wasn't even worth looking up.

I’m guessing a lot of people in south Ontario had a similar experience to yours.

Yeah, it feels better to have been with a bunch of people who had the same experience. And it was still cool.

Same here! The totality was still cool to experience, though. This might be the only time in my life I can say that I would have rather been in Cleveland.

We were worried about that happening. We did get some high, thin clouds that made the view “fuzzy”, but overall it was a good view in the end. We really waited to the last minute to make a decision where we would attempt to see it, luckily we chose well.

I checked the noaa cloud cover forecast 7 days prior, 2 days, 1 day, 12 hours... My friends in Rochester, NY (pretty sure) got clouded out but Burlington VT had a mild hazy layer of clouds that still offered full view. It blurred some of the corona. I hope you still got to experience that sudden darkness, maybe watch the shadow drift across the cloud layer too.

I traveled to Burlington and it was utterly spectacular.
Say hello to your friends for me, I was in Rochester and also got a great view of the great cloud barrier! 🙃

In my area the clouds were of just right density to look at the sun without glasses. It was surreal.

DFW here. Saw the weather forecast for Dallas was cloudy and decided to make a last minute drive for Arkansas on the morning of the eclipse. Managed to see it at 100% with clear skies, but also found out that the skies were pretty clear in parts of dfw during 100% anyway so my hours of driving weren't all that useful.

You took the initiative to find clear skies. Nothing useless about it unless you wanted to take a guess where the cloud opening would be at that exact time at home
It was a mixed bag around the metroplex for sure. It was spotty then cleared up then a big ol fat cloud rolled up just in time for totality on my side of town. Still was better than what they forecasting.

My viewing experience was ruined by living in Seattle.

I'm so sorry about that.

We got very lucky in SE Indiana. Drive which is normally an hour (we went to in laws house) was 1.5.

Clear skies the entire time and a beautiful day in the mid 70s.

My parents flew in south TX thinking they would outsmart the weather and ended up being covered in clouds.

Totality went right over my house (Texas). Had a cloud obscured view about 30% of the time during the lead up to totality (70% of the time with no view). Saw two seconds of cloud dimmed totality before a thick cloud blotted it out. Sucked. Beautiful clear blue sky today.

Had an awesome 3min of double eclipse totality while listening to Total Eclipse of the Heart. It was starting to feel like a triple eclipse.

The sun eclipsed by the moon and the thick clouds, my heart by all three.

It wasn't ruined, it was a different experience than I expected, and it was fabulous. Turn around, bright eyes

Not really mad. Just very sad. I had been waiting years for it and I drove hours so I could spend the eclipse with friends within the totality. We made the most of it, but it sucked.

My manager made a last minute trip from Toronto to Montreal because he it was cloudy. He was all geared up for taking photos, and he in fact did get some extremely cool shots.

I'm in northern Ontario, so unfortunately I couldn't experience the full effect.

Well, here, I had clouds that had gotten in the way of the eclipse on Monday, even though it had gotten to a sliver of sun left before the moon moved away. I was able to see that there was dim sunlight here when there was a break in the clouds and seem mysterious in a way to me.

From the UK, the dark sky lasted longer than I thought.