Freak ‘eclipse winds’ will accompany Friday’s solar phenomenon say experts
FREAK winds and sudden temperature drops will accompany Friday’s partial solar eclipse, UK weather experts said.
Meteorologists attempting to nail down the urban legend of ‘eclipse winds’ say the wind will change direction or die away altogether as the moon passes in front of the sun, while the mercury will plummet by about three degrees.
**VIEW OUR GALLERY OF THE SOLAR ECLIPSE**
The claims are based on data gathered from the last major solar eclipse in the UK in 1999 – and scientists are hoping to prove that wasn’t a one-off with a country-wide experiment enlisting hundreds of members of the public.
Atmospheric physicist Professor Giles Harrison and his colleague Dr Suzanne Gray, both at the University of Reading, are studying what impact the relative positions of the sun and moon have on weather patterns.
We've never had enough data to definitively prove or disprove its existence before.
And Professor Harrison said that observers could expect some unusual weather activity during the eclipse.
He added: “There are several accounts of an 'eclipse wind', a change in the breeze as the eclipse reaches its greatest extent, but we've never had enough data to definitively prove or disprove its existence before.
“While we have more data now than ever from weather stations and satellites, we still need people to provide their own observations, particularly to tell us about cloud cover.
“This could also help to establish if breaks in the cloud are common during the peak of an eclipse.”
Professor Harrison and his colleagues have set up the National Eclipse Weather Experiment to ask members of the public to record minute by minute weather changes - including air temperature, wind speed, wind direction and cloud cover during the eclipse.
Friday's eclipse is expected to start around 8.24am in London and will peak at around 9.31am when the moon will cast its biggest shadow over the Earth.
