INDIANAPOLIS — The 2024 Total Solar Eclipse path of totality crosses through central Indiana on Monday, April 8 — and it will be another 129 years before it happens again.
Each city will have a slightly different timeline of the eclipse from beginning to end, but here's the schedule for the Indianapolis metro:
- 1:50:33 p.m. Partial eclipse begins
- 3:06:06 p.m. Totality begins
- 3:07:59 p.m. Maximum eclipse
- 3:09:43 p.m. Totality ends
- 4:23:13 p.m. Partial eclipse ends
Click here for city-by-city look at the length of totality, with Vincennes at 4 minutes, 5 seconds in totality and the community of Bristow in totality for 38 seconds.
13News' Great American Eclipse special airs live at 3 p.m. on WTHR, WTHR+ and on the WTHR mobile app.
13News has coverage across central Indiana, including at the Indiana State Fairgrounds, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Butler University, Indiana University, Franklin and the Indiana Department of Transportation Traffic Management Center.
PHOTOS: 13News team coverage of the total solar eclipse
An estimated 1 million people are expected to be in central Indiana to witness the total solar eclipse.
"We've learned that in some of these events, people can be stuck in traffic for hours," Indiana State Police Sgt. John Perrine said.
In Oregon in 2017, during the last total solar eclipse, drivers endured bumper to bumper traffic for miles. A one-hour trip took five hours.
That same year in Kentucky, same deal. The post-eclipse exodus created a traffic nightmare lasting nine hours in the path of totality. Interstates were more like parking lots.
PHOTOS: Total solar eclipse photos submitted by viewers
"Once the eclipse is over? Sit still. Let the traffic go for awhile. We see this happen at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway every year where everybody packs in. And the people that plan to take their time and go back to their cars and hang out? They're the happiest because they don't fight the traffic getting out. They don't get caught in the gridlock," said Mike Pruitt, public information officer for the Johnson County Joint Incident Management Team.
Don't forget to charge your phone, gas up and load the car with essentials for the eclipse.
