March 30, 2033: Alaska’s total eclipse

Nome has always been hard to reach. In January 1925, when diphtheria broke out and the town ran out of antitoxin, the port was frozen, Alaska’s few planes were packed away for the winter and no road led there. Twenty mushers and about 150 dogs relayed the serum 674 miles from the railroad at Nenana, in temperatures down to −62°F. It took them five and a half days.

The town still has no road link to the rest of Alaska, and on March 30, 2033, it will be one of the best places in the country to see a total solar eclipse. At 9:45 a.m. the Moon will cover the Sun completely for about two and a half minutes.

It will be the first total eclipse in the United States since April 8, 2024, and the only one before 2044.

The next total eclipse in the United States

Ask when the next total eclipse comes after April 8, 2024, and the usual answer is 2044, the next one in the lower 48 states. Alaska gets one eleven years earlier.

The path crosses the western and northern part of the state, from the Bering Strait to the Arctic coast. It is unusually wide, up to about 485 miles (780 km), roughly four times the width of the 2024 path. The low Sun stretches the shadow across the curve of the Earth, the way a flashlight beam spreads into a long oval when you tilt it.

Anchorage and Fairbanks sit outside the path, with more than 95% of the Sun covered. Bethel misses by a hair, at 99.8%. People there will see a thin, blinding crescent and a dim, strange morning, but not the darkness or the corona.

The lower 48 get their turn later, with a sunset eclipse over Montana and North Dakota in 2044 and a six-minute eclipse from California to Florida in 2045. Alaska itself will not see another total eclipse until 2097, when the path crosses Denali.

A morning eclipse on the ice

Late March in western Alaska still looks like winter. The land is white, and the sea along the coast is usually frozen. Totality comes in the middle of the morning, with the Sun low in the eastern sky, 5 to 14 degrees up.

A white landscape makes some parts of the show easier to see. Just before and after totality, faint ripples of light called shadow bands can run across the ground, and fresh snow is the best screen for them. The Moon’s shadow itself may also be visible on the ice, rolling in from the west a few seconds before totality.

The eclipse also falls in aurora season. Totality happens in daylight, so the northern lights will not show up during it, but visitors who arrive a few days early have a good chance of seeing them at night.

Nome, Kotzebue and the top of Alaska

With about 3,700 people, Nome is the biggest town on the Seward Peninsula. It is also the simplest place in the path to reach, with daily Alaska Airlines jets from Anchorage, about 1½ hours away. Back in 2017, Leon Boardway of the Nome Visitor Center told the Anchorage Daily News how he would pitch it to Iditarod fans: “After Iditarod, I’ll just say, hey, stick around for the eclipse.”

Kotzebue, about 180 miles northeast, gets the same 2½ minutes a few minutes later. Point Hope, on a spit of land reaching into the Chukchi Sea, gets almost two minutes.

Utqiagvik, formerly Barrow, sits close to the point of greatest eclipse, where totality lasts 2 minutes and 37 seconds, according to NASA. It is the northernmost town in the United States, more than 300 miles north of the Arctic Circle. For Utqiagvik, says National Weather Service climatologist Brian Brettschneider, “it is their only total eclipse in a 1,000-year period.”

Picking the best spot for the eclipse in Alaska

• Nome About 2½ minutes, and more flights and hotel rooms than the other towns in the path, though that still means only a few hotels.
• Kotzebue The same 2½ minutes, a few minutes later, with daily jets from Anchorage and likely fewer visitors than Nome.
• Utqiagvik The longest totality, about 2 minutes and 37 seconds, with the Sun a little higher at 11 degrees. It is usually colder and pricier than Nome.
• The Dalton Highway It is the only road in. Galbraith Lake gets a little over a minute and Deadhorse about 1 minute and 40 seconds. Only for well-equipped winter drivers.
• Not Anchorage, Fairbanks or Bethel All three stay outside the path and see only a partial eclipse, even Bethel, which misses totality by a hair.

Weather, cold and hotel beds

Fourteen minutes to the top of the state

The shadow crosses the Bering Strait from Russia, where Chukotka sees totality just after sunrise on the morning of March 31 local time. It reaches Nome at 9:45 a.m. and Utqiagvik, about 520 miles to the north, just before 10 a.m. That works out to about 2,300 mph, roughly four times the speed of a jet airliner.

Back in 1925, the serum relay needed five and a half days to cover a slightly longer distance by dog sled. In 2033 the Moon’s shadow will cross most of Alaska in about 14 minutes.