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?

Yes I share your sentiments but life "stuff" has got in the way so will (sadly) have to do with 99 point something.

Yeah I went all the way to Cornwall to some festival as it was meant to be the best place to watch it

I can’t recall really seeing anything and then got stuck on a small road trying to get out of Cornwall for literally hours and hours 😡

I was in Swindon and it was not dark, but definitely twilight-y.

Really? I was living in Southampton and it didnt go.that dark there. It was a really cloudy day anyway and didnt get much darker at all as I recall.

Yes. It went cold. A bit dim, colours leached from surrounding plants. I was a bit disappointed, I had expected it to go completely dark!

@notimagain

99.something though will be rubbish compared with totality and you know that.

If you are in the 99.something zone then in all likelyhood you are only an hour or so drive from the path of totality.

You will probably never get an easier or lower cost opportunity to see a total eclipse in your lifetime - I guess if you are in Spain you could go for the 2027 one, but that will probably be a clusterfuck like Cornwall was because everyone will pile into one place with limited road routes !

SW here, a group of us went up onto Exmoor to watch it, my boss gave us all the morning off work and I took the whole day and we went to the pub aftwards .

I don't recall it being that spectacular, I think it was cloudy or we didn't get a good view for some reason. I remember it did go cold, but it didn't go completely dark.

This one has sort of crept up on me. I didn't get any glasses, although do have some in the loft from 1999, I have no idea where to find them.

I was in
my 30s. It was in the morning and went a bit dull like the sun had gone in. Very underwhelming

Just can't do it (sadly)..really really frustrating...

I did think about driving down from the UK to see it, but the drive is pretty long and the car has been acting up recently. I drove about 700 miles to see the US one.

I am contemplating doing the 2027 one with a trip to Eygpt and a Nile cruise.

I've been to Eygpt a couple of times but there is plenty of stuff I haven't seen. The chance to see all the stuff I haven't plus get an eclipse of over 6 minutes of totality seems like too good an opportunity to miss.

The cost though is not insignificant, but I haven't been doing holidays recently.

I was 2.5 and it’s my earliest memory! I’m in north west and remember it going quite dark

I don’t remember total darkness (west mids) but we were stood in the garden and all the birds went quiet it was really wierd

It was only total in Cornwall, and there was tabloid panic that the south west would become completely gridlocked, because of the millions of people “flocking” to Cornwall to see it.

The media love the word “flocking”, as people were “flocking” to beaches in 2020, when they should have been cowering at home, obediently worshipping Saint Boris as he appeared on television to preach and moralise, in the gaps between his parties.

I think this must be a marker of how much general light pollution there is in that area, if you perceived a partial eclipse as being as dark as night-time black!

By good luck rather than planning, I was in Dieppe for the 1999 one and the US for the 2024 one, both times under the full path of totality. It got cold, birds stopped singing, very eerie as others have described. It was very, very different to the 2015 one, where it just got a bit darker for a couple of minutes, no different to clouds crossing the sun on an otherwise sunny day.

I was in London at work. We all went outside to look at it. It was either dark or grey, can’t remember.

It was only total in Cornwall, and there was tabloid panic that the south west would become completely gridlocked, because of the millions of people “flocking” to Cornwall to see it.

The media love the word “flocking”, as people were “flocking” to beaches in 2020, when they should have been cowering at home, obediently worshipping Saint Boris as he appeared on television to preach and moralise, in the gaps between his parties.

I was out of the country and gutted to miss it in London but everyone said it was underwhelming - but wasn't it quite a cloudy day?

DH doesn't remember it happening at all, which given he was 25 at the time is classic!

I was in Somerset and it went dark there, but not pitch black.

I remember it going dark in Suffolk, but not pitch black. I was at holiday club and they got us all the special glasses so we could go out and watch.

For anyone interested, once image approved, totality track for the UK portion of the 1999 eclipse. Anyone north of the upper of the three solid three lines didn't get to experience a total eclipse....

In 1999 (for me in Oxfordshire) it was quite a cloudy day, so not quite as extreme difference as it will be later today. It became fairly dark (like twilight) and felt pretty eerie, got chilly and the birds went silent. Quite quick though, but still an experience I remember vividly.

I was in Theale just outside Reading. Went up on to the roof of the office building, but it was a bit of a damp squib!

I was in London, it went really gloomy but definitely not dark.

I was in East Anglia at the time. It got darker (but not pitch black), and all the birds stopped singing. It was quite eerie.

I was 12 in London. Got a tiny bit shady and then it was over.