To remember that it didn’t really get dark in the 1999 eclipse?

[powercats]

I was 14, in South Wales. If you look at the news coverage and videos recorded in 1999 it seems to get as dark as night. But I don’t remember that at all - the sky was still blue, it just went dim, like it would in heavy rain or as if it was 6pm instead of 11am.

Is this how other people remember it?

I was in Chester, it went kind of 'stormy dark' but a bit of a yellowy colour, I suppose it might be similar later.

^ This (and others like it).

Unless you were under the track where the eclipse was a total one - Sun's disk 100% covered by the Moon it wouldn't have gone dark.

As far as the UK went in 1999 that was a small part of the extreme south west of England - south tip of Devon and some of Cornwall.

..
And as others have pointed out even at 98%-99% totality the eye will adapt - things won't go pitch black.

I agree with the comment that a lot of people in the UK are going to he very dissapointed with this evenings events...the MSM have maybe generated unreasonable expectations

Edit to add that we were under the 100% totality track in 1999 (South Devon) and it very definitely went very dark for a few minutes ...but sadly there was total cloud cover where we were so that's all we got

I was in my work car park in Yorkshire and it went overcast and chilly and all the birds stopped singing. That was the most striking memory for me.

Definitely dark in london, we were at work and went out to watch, the birds came to roost, they were very confused.

IME people don't have very good memories of events, either they tend to feel they are much more dramatic than they actually are, or forget them completely.

Anyway, in about 7 hours time everyone will get to find out how magical a 90% solar eclipse actually is.

In Southampton we had twilight, but more eerie

It wasn't pitch black in Somerset so wouldn't have been in Wales. It got as dark as dusk, with the sky very grey but not like night time. It would have been like night further south because the total eclipse patheay did include the very southernmost bit of England.

Me too. Was working in Borough an we all went outside to see it. Very quiet, very eerie.
Probably won’t see much of this one. I now live near a really good site for viewing but, whereas 27 years ago barely anyone would have known about the place, now it’s being touted on SM and it will be rammed, so sadly will give it a miss. See what I can see (or not!) from the garden.

I was in Glasgow and remember being a bit disappointed as it just went dull, not total darkness. I remember a lot of people were going to Cornwall to see it.

I was in the cotswolds, and it went very dark, not pitch, but very noticeably dark. It was incredibly eerie, all the birds and animals went so still and quiet!

Interesting illustration of how things have changed socially since 1999, @UnpopularOpinionsIWouldUsuallyKeepToMyself ... everything's a photo op now... watch out for the punters wanting everyone to stand back so it looks like they were alone at the 'clipse...😞

I was in Aberdeen, remember it going sort of dusky or 'rain is coming' dark, and the birds being subdued but not dramatically so... I saw it reflected in my car... (someone will be along to say how dangerous that was in a minute...). 😳

My exH (boyfriend at the time) went to Cornwall for the total eclipse of '99 and said it was complete darkness on the beach there.

I was in Kent and is was more like dusk.

Still only see a few in any lifetime so I will be on the local hill tonight to experience it.

I was in Cornwall. I remember it being a cloudy, overcast day. It went from grey to greyer and back to grey again. I remember thinking it was not very exciting. I am not very excited for this, either!

One of the problems with the expectation here is the MSM seem to be using a lot of images of total eclipses to illustrate their stories...so you see fantastic pictures showing the glow of the Sun's outer atmosphere and other structures only visible to the naked eye during totality.

Problem is totality is a binary thing - you're either seeing a total or not.

If you are within the totality ground track (so e.g. this evening in part a narrow band through Spain) you get the full 100% spectacular show.

If you are outside that track, even by a handful of miles/kilometres the eclipse is a partial one and all you get to see a dim/very dim sky and a very slender crecent Sun.

....where we are ATM (outside UK) we'll get about 99% coverage but even so we're not going to see some of the views the UK MSM are using to illustrate this.

I don't remember the 1999 one but in the 2015 one it went grey & chilly but not pitch black. As others have said, the birds stopped singing and it was rather eerie.

I remember it going darker in London. The birds went quiet.

It wouldn’t have got dark if you weren’t in the path of totality. I was in northern France, standing in a field, and it was a total eclipse there. It went dark and the birds stopped singing suddenly, it was utterly eerie and magical.

I was in Leeds and don't remember it being darker than a very cloudy day, I do remember how eerily quiet it was though, the birds completely disappeared and there wasn't a sound.

I was in London and it was a grey and overcast day, it just went a little bit greyer, if I didn't know there was an eclipse I wouldn't have noticed.

I was in the west of Ireland and it just got a bit cool and dull.

I watched a 1999 news broadcast and it went very very dark on the southern coast. Looked like night time.

Both 1999 and 2015 were partial eclipses for me and it went dull and cloudier.

Both were sunny days.

DH has told the DCs that they'll need torches. They will not!

The thing I remember most was the temperature drop and the birds going silent

We saw very little in Glasgow so watched it on TV

I think either Gaby Roslin or Yvette Fielding did the coverage and it was rubbish 😅

I was in France and it went dark there. Very chilly and quite an unsettling experience but glad I saw it. I don't think we'll get the same effect tonight in the UK as only a partial eclipse.