Sky & Telescope - October 2023 - 37

Utah and New Mexico
The eclipse track next runs diagonally across the southwestern
half of Utah. At this point, the shadow's speed is 5,600
km/h. Richfield (population 8,200) is the largest city in
southern-central Utah and lies 25 km north of the central
line, where the duration of annularity is 4m 37s. Salt Lake
City, the state's capital, is 120 km north of the path - its
200,500 residents will witness a deep partial eclipse with a
magnitude (the fraction of the Sun's diameter covered by the
Moon) of 0.92. Fortunately, three of Utah's national parks
(Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef, and Canyonlands) straddle the
eclipse path, as do several national monuments (Bears Ears,
Grand Staircase-Escalante, Hovenweep, Natural Bridges,
and Rainbow Bridge) as well as Glen Canyon National Recreation
Area.
As the 204-kilometer-wide track exits Utah at 10:32 MDT,
it crosses the Southwest's Four Corners region, where the
borders of Utah, Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico meet.
The picturesque sandstone buttes of Monument Valley Navajo
Tribal Park along the Utah-Arizona border receive 4m 38s of
annularity. Visitors to Colorado's Mesa Verde National Park
can expect an annular phase lasting 2m 44s.
Across the Great Basin of Nevada and Utah, central-line
cloudiness declines a further 15%, falling to the mid-20%
range at the Colorado border. Here again, the south side of the
track offers the best climatology, from Unionville to Eureka in
Nevada, and onward to Beaver and Bryce Canyon in Utah.
Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah marks the start of the
very best weather prospects, and sunshine dominates from
there across Monument Valley, Four Corners National Park,
Albuquerque, and Roswell. Monthly cloud cover drops below
30% - the lowest along the whole eclipse track. There is not
much to choose between one site or another across this part
of the American Southwest.
The eclipse path runs diagonally across New Mexico from
its northwestern to its southeastern corners and encompasses
nearly half the state. As a result, numerous national parks
and monuments lie inside the eclipse track, including Aztec
Ruins, Chaco Canyon, Bandelier, Valles Caldera, KashaKatuwe
Tent Rocks, Petroglyph, and Pecos. New Mexico's
largest city, Albuquerque (population 562,000), is just south
of the central line and receives 4m 50s of annularity at 10:37
MDT. By coincidence, the eclipse occurs in the final days
of the annual Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta, a major tourist
attraction in the area.
Big, persistent weather systems are uncommon in New
Mexico in October, but their passage farther north often
sends weakening cold fronts into the state. They are most
likely to affect the areas southwest of Albuquerque, toward
the Texas border. Jet-stream winds flowing across the Mexican
border bring high-level cirrus clouds, but these are usually too
thin to completely hide the eclipse.
sk yand tele scope .o r g * OCTOBER 2023 37
Colorado
Springs
Farmington
Los Alamos
Santa Fe
Albuquerque
Roswell
Carlsbad
El Paso
Hobbs
Midland
Odessa
Chihuahua
Torreón
Amarillo
Oklahoma
City
Big Spring
Ft. Worth
San Angelo
Austin
San
Antonio
Beeville
Laredo
Alice
Corpus
Christi
Kingsville
New Braunfels
Matamoros
Tampico
Gallup
Tucson
Nogales
Shreveport
Baton
Rouge
75%
80%
85%
Northern limit of annularity
Path of Annularity
Southern limit of annularity
https://skyandtelescope.org/
Sky & Telescope - October 2023

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Sky & Telescope - October 2023
