Kevin Williams is director of SUNY Buffalo State University’s Whitworth Ferguson Planetarium, a geosciences professor and a self-described space nerd – but he missed seeing the last total solar eclipse in the United States in 2017 because he stayed in Buffalo while others on his team traveled to the path of totality in the South and Midwest for the big event.
That is why Williams is optimistic that April 8 will be a clear, sunny day in Buffalo for the total eclipse of the sun that will include a large swath of Western New York in its path of totality.
“I’m owed,” he joked.
As he did for the August 2017 partial eclipse, Williams will be giving the play-by-play for Buffalo State’s Eclipse Fest, which is expected to attract 2,500 eclipse viewers to the university’s Coyer Field for activities, music, food trucks, swag and “memories to last a lifetime,” according to the event website, planetarium.buffalostate.edu/eclipse-fest.
For
the 2017 event, which was free, Buffalo State planned on about 300 people, and more than 2,000 showed up, Williams said. This time, with as many as a million people expected to descend on Western New York for the total eclipse, Buffalo State made Eclipse Fest 2024 a ticketed event to cover costs and keep attendance manageable.
How does a total solar eclipse happen and what will the experience be like? Here’s what you need to know.
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