Those hoping to catch Thursday night’s lunar eclipse, be warned — this is a bummer.
For the uninformed, there’s a lunar eclipse scheduled to appear between Thursday night and Friday morning this week. A lucky few may even catch a meteor shower… though it’s unlikely they’ll be in Oregon.
This week’s National Weather Service forecast is saying that, big surprise, it’ll be raining in Oregon this week. A good portion of the Pacific Northwest will be covered by clouds, so at best, we can rest easy knowing those smug Washingtonians won’t see it, either.
John Bumgardner, a meteorologist with the Portland branch of the National Weather Service told OregonLive that, “It looks like the kind of rain that would blanket the whole state. If by some miracle the system were to speed up a lot, then maybe, but I would say the chances are pretty bad for seeing the eclipse.”
If you want to spite Bumgardner and go stargazing anyway, the lunar eclipse is expected to start in the early hours of Friday, turning the moon a deep red. Roughly 97% of the moon’s surface is expected to be covered.
The best chance to see the eclipse will be between 11:19 p.m. on Thursday and 2:47 a.m. on Friday, peaking just after 1 a.m., should the clouds grant us a brief respite.
By Ethan Hauck
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