Total Lunar Eclipse Begins Tonight

If clouds clear out early enough, we'll have a nice view of a total lunar eclipse, the first of a four-eclipse cycle called a tetrad. A total lunar eclipse is also known as a "blood moon" because of its reddish color.

If you're interested in staying up late, or getting up early, you'll want to look up right around midnight Tuesday morning.  The eclipse will officially begin around 11:53pm when the moon begins to move near the Earth's outer shadow.  At 12:58am, the partial phase of the eclipse will begin as the Earth's shadow starts to move over the face of the full moon.  At approximately 2:06am the eclipse will reach totality.  The earth and moon will be nearly in line around 2:46am with the light of the moon appearing at its dimmest.  Eclipse totality will end at 3:24am and the moon will emerge from the umbra around 4:33am.

The bigger question heading into tonight will be if the clouds clear out soon enough.  At this point, it's looks like there will be some clearing taking place but I'm not anticipating complete clearing.  Temperatures will also be quite cold falling into the middle and upper 20's right around midnight and dropping into the low 20's by 5am.

If you do venture out and are able to get some decent pictures, send them in: weather@wtvo.com.  We'd love to see them!

If the clouds are too thick tonight, you can watch it LIVE from the comfort of you home here.