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Wolf
Total Eclipse in Oregon. Aired 1-1:30p ET
Aired August 21, 2017 - 13:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Very quickly, Scott, what are you going to be looking for specifically today?
SCOTT HAWLEY, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF PHYSICS, BELMONT UNIVERSITY: I'm going to be looking for the corona. I've studied the corona and looked at spacecraft images but this will be an amazing time to just see it with the naked eye and everyone's going to be able to do this.
BLITZER: Speaking of the naked eye, David, I just want to alert viewers who are watching. Don't look directly. They need these special glasses, right?
DAVID DEVORKIN, SENIOR CURATOR, SMITHSONIAN NATIONAL AIR AND SPACE MUSEUM: Absolutely.
BLITZER: Tell our viewers why they need this.
DEVORKIN: The sun -- I mean, as I said, all forms of radiation. And even though we wouldn't feel the infrared or the ultraviolet, if we stare at the sun, they'll burn our retina right away. And so, we need these kinds of glasses that are specially formulated to keep out those rays.
BLITZER: Especially children.
DEVORKIN: Oh, absolutely.
BLITZER: Everybody who's outside in that totality range needs to wear these. But even if you're not necessarily in the totality.
DEVORKIN: If you're not in totality, you definitely need them. Because at any point, the surface brightness of the sun is just so great that even a small fraction of that surface being visible. And if you stare at it, you will be damaged.
BLITZER: And it'll be damaged for the rest of your life.
DEVORKIN: Unfortunately so.
BLITZER: As we've spoke to individuals who were 15, 16 years old. They've looked up --
DEVORKIN: Yes.
BLITZER: -- and they've got problems --
DEVORKIN: Yes.
BLITZER: -- the rest of their lives.
We're standing by. I want to show our viewers some live pictures coming in right now from Big Summit Prairie, Oregon right now on the left. They're going to be experiencing totality in, what, roughly about 20 minutes or so.
On the right, take a look at this. We'll put it up on the screen. Blackwell, Missouri with totality in about an hour from now. I want to quickly go back to CNN's Chad Myers to set the scene. For viewers here in the United States, Chad, and around the world who are just tuning in, set the scene for us what we're about to see over the next hour or two.
CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: A swath 70 miles wide, 3,000 miles long will go across the earth. The shadow of the moon. And people have asked me now for days, how on earth does this thing start in Oregon and end in South Carolina?
Well, here's how it sets up. It's three dimensional. Here's where we are right now. The shadow of the moon is way off to the west. The sun's going to get higher. The moon's going to get higher.
Then, all of a sudden, in about an hour, you're going to be right where you said, right in Missouri. An hour from then, the sun and moon are going to line up like this and that will be all the way across the east coast.
So, that's how this goes its wrong way. In fact, it is the right way. It's how they're supposed to go.
But let me take to you one more thing, because it's important about the glasses, Wolf. Brought myself a little flashlight. See that? It works. Now, I brought myself one of my broken expensive glasses, because only expensive glasses break. And I'm going to put it through it. And you can still see, through my polarized lens, can you still see that.
Now, I take this same flashlight and I put it on this, and there is nothing coming out. 99.97 percent of everything blocked by this lens, not even close to this one. Sunglasses do not work.
BLITZER: You know, it's true because if I, Chad, put on these glasses right now, you know what I see?
MYERS: Nothing.
BLITZER: Absolutely nothing. Total, total darkness. And that's what you need, at this point, in order to protect your eyesight. Just trying to underscore how significant this is. Because there could be -- especially kids looking up inadvertently, there could be permanent damage.
MYERS: Sure. And, you know, people ask me, is this sun today worse than any other day? Is there more radiation? No, there isn't. It's the same sun.
You shouldn't look at the sun any day and you don't. When you get it -- when you see it, you go, oh, that -- you can see spots in your eyes. But today, people are wanting to look at it to see this crescent. And you absolutely can't do it. It's as bad or worse than looking at it on a normal day.
That's just a big, round globe. You'll just have different spots and you pretend that can look at it longer. You should look at it zero seconds today. Make the box, do whatever, or just watch it on T.V., because we have the best pictures.
BLITZER: We certainly do. We're going to have extensive live coverage coming up here on CNN, of course.
Chad, don't go too far away. David DeVorkin, you're still with us, Senior Curator at Smithsonian National Air and Space museum. And, historically, this is, what, the first time in 99 years we've seen this type of eclipse here in the United States.
DEVORKIN: But what's really historic is that it's our eclipse alone. North America is the only land mass that this eclipse path goes over. Everything else is water.
BLITZER: And they've been able to predict this for a long time.
DEVORKIN: Absolutely.
BLITZER: And predict future eclipses down the road.
DEVORKIN: Absolutely. We've been able to predict eclipses with greater and greater and greater accuracy over the past centuries.
BLITZER: Let me bring in Chris Hadfield. You're in Brisbane, Australia. You're an astronaut. Astronauts, they will be watching this very, very closely as well. Tell our viewers why.
CHRIS HADFIELD, FORMER COMMANDER, INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION: Yes. There are six people up on the space station including Peggy Whitson, who's the all-time record holder for an American in space.
[13:05:05] And they're going to cross the part of the world where the shadow is down here on the surface a couple times as it's crossing across the U.S. And that is such a rare event, such a cool thing to see. To have the sun on one side, somehow the moon shadow in the way and putting a very strange apparition under the surface of the world.
No -- out of the -- 7.5 billion of us, there's only 6 that are getting that view, that rare perspective of the whole world and the shadow of the moon on it. So, we'll be looking forward to the pictures that Peggy and the folks up there take also.
BLITZER: You know, we certainly will. I want to show viewers some live pictures coming in from Newport, Oregon right now, the beach over there. Take a look at this, this eclipse is moving closer and closer. Miguel Marquez, you're on the scene for us in Oregon. Set the scene. MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is absolutely incredible,
Wolf. It's getting darker here. It's getting cooler here, several degrees cooler. And we have this perfect, sort of, Cheshire cat grin right now. Just -- we're about maybe seven minutes away from totality here in Salem, Oregon. You can feel, sort of, the energy and excitement that people have here.
I want to introduce you to somebody over here. These guys have come from a very long way away. All the way from Cork, Ireland. It's their astronomy club. Thirty-six members of their astronomy club.
Bill, I'm going to put you on the spot. You have to take your glasses off. Bill, stand up here, if you would. What is your last name?
BILL O'MARA: Bill O'Mara (ph).
MARQUEZ: And you're from Cork?
OWMARA: Cork, Ireland, yes.
MARQUEZ: Why come all this way? This is your group here. You guys have created, sort of, a sun circle here. Why come all this way?
OWMARA: Well, we love coming to your wonderful university here. And we've come, of course, to see a total eclipse.
MARQUEZ: How many eclipses have you seen?
OWMARA: I have -- this is my first total eclipse.
MARQUEZ: Really? And -- but you're part of the -- you're the president of the astronomy club. I'm amazed by that. Why is this one so important?
OWMARA: Yes. This one is so important because it was accessible and readily shown (ph) to us. We only had to travel 5,000 miles.
MARQUEZ: Said with typical Irish understatement. Well, have a great time. How far off do you think we are right now?
OWMARA: From totality, --
MARQUEZ: From totality.
OWMARA: -- I would say we're about, maybe, 10 minutes.
MARQUEZ: Maybe 10 minutes. They just -- they just announced 13, but you think 10 minutes -- we're off?
OWMARA: Yes.
MARQUEZ: A very, very excited crowd out here.
The other interesting thing about this particular path, it only hits the U.S. The last time that happened, 1257. About 200 years before Christopher Columbus was even born -- Wolf. BLITZER: Yes, it's a lot -- a lot of time that we've waited for this moment right now, David. You see what's going on. You see 99 years since the eclipse, a total eclipse, has gone all across the United States.
DEVORKIN: That's right.
BLITZER: And what happened the last time it was up -- there was a total eclipse but not all across the United States?
DEVORKIN: There have been a good number of them. I saw a great one in March 1970. It came up the east coast and went right across Nantucket Island. And that was my first total eclipse.
BLITZER: What was that like?
DEVORKIN: It was absolutely fabulous. I was part of a Yale University Observatory eclipse expedition and beach party. And we had a fantastic time. We took time lapse pictures of the sun and the moon going across it. We watched the sea gulls, sort of, nest after a while. And the whole place, sort of, took on a quietness after.
And -- but what really got me more than anything else was the 360- degree twilight.
BLITZER: Tell us about that.
DEVORKIN: Oh, it's absolutely fantastic. It was a -- for me, it was a golden twilight all the way around.
BLITZER: Because you would turn yourself around to see it.
DEVORKIN: Right. I had a special job. I had to stand at the top of a telescope dome and remove a filter exactly at the point of totality. But also gave me a view all the way around and I was able to see this incredible totality.
But what it was capped by, right at the top, was this crown of light. And it was this beautiful ethereal crown of light which, of course, was the sun's corona, it's outer atmosphere.
And I tell you, I was useless for at least a minute. But luckily, I didn't have to do anything for at least four minutes. And I just sat there and I just drank it all in.
BLITZER: It's a moment you'd never forget, right?
DEVORKIN: Absolutely not.
BLITZER: How many eclipses have you seen?
DEVORKIN: I've seen two. Since I met the woman who's going to be my wife at the first one, I was a little -- saying, well, maybe we shouldn't go to another. But after 36 years, what the hell.
And so, we went to Libya. And in the 2000 eclipse, 2006 eclipse, sorry, it was absolutely fabulous. And we're still married.
BLITZER: Scott Hawley, what about you? You've seen -- I assume you've seen an eclipse before. Tell us about it.
[13:10:04] HAWLEY: I've only see a partial eclipse. Back in 1984, there was a partial eclipse that came up the eastern seaboard of the United States, and I was in sixth grade. This will be my first total eclipse, and I'm very much looking forward to it.
BLITZER: Yes. We have eight minutes, we're now told, until the first total eclipse. You will see it here on CNN, to all of our viewers.
Chris Hadfield, what about you? You've seen eclipses before?
HADFIELD: I've only seen a partial before, Wolf. And I remember standing and holding one of the little reflectors so I didn't have to look at it directly. I didn't have the super dark glasses at the time.
But I just -- I found it really fascinating to have this little projection of the round sun slowly being eaten away by the shadow of the moon. It happens slowly enough that you have time to think and puzzle about what's really going on in the solar system and the rareness of the event. And that, to me, that was the best part.
As a kid, seeing that, kind of opened up my thoughts to what I might be able to do in my life. Maybe a chance to pursue some things that seemed impossible. It kind of gave me a little window on the world and the moon and the sun that I'd never really put together before.
BLITZER: Yes, it's a spiritual moment for so many as well.
Chad Myers, you're an expert in this area and we know that humans are going to be watching this total eclipse. But what about the impact on animals?
MYERS: Yes, that is a great question, because the nocturnal animals actually will see it getting dark and go, hey, wait. What happened? That was only a six-hour day. And they'll get up and they'll start to move around. And then, three minutes later, it will start to get light again and then they go back in their hole or wherever they live.
So, yes, it does affect animals as much or more than humans because they are more attuned to the beat of the world. Also, bees and birds will get to this tune as well. And the bees will start to go back to their hives. Birds will go back to their nests. And then, all of a sudden, it'll be -- it'll be bright again.
Here's how it works, Wolf. I want to tell you, the sun and the moon, they always make shadows. The earth makes a shadow. Mars makes a shadow. Mercury makes a shadow so do airplanes. Sometimes you're on the ground, an airplane flies over. You see that shadow.
This is the big shadow of the day, because it comes off the moon which is 400 times closer than the sun. Even though it's 400 times smaller, that math works out. It almost appears to be the exact same size. Depending how close the moon and the sun are away.
Now, it's an oval -- kind of almost an egg-shaped rotation around the earth. It isn't always this close. Because it is this close this time, there will be a complete and not annular. It won't be a big ring around the moon. It will actually be completely covering the sun. And so, therefore, we go for the word, total eclipse, Wolf.
BLITZER: Any advice for the folks who are worried about their pets, dogs, cats, other animals?
MYERS: My dog is afraid if I drop a fork on the ground. So, I can imagine that other animals will be some skittish as well. If they are outside, they need to be tied up, just for this brief little time until it all goes way. Either inside or tied up. You know, we always want them inside and not tied up anyway.
But the idea is so that they don't run away. You know, you hear of people losing animals all the time over fireworks. During the fourth of July, they get scared. Well, animals, your pets, especially your domesticated pets can also get scared as well.
BLITZER: I'm sure they will.
All right, stand by. I want to go back to Miguel out in Salem, Oregon right now. Only moments away from that total eclipse. Set the scene again for us, Miguel.
MARQUEZ: It is -- it's unlike -- this gentleman. What is your name?
CHRIS RALPH: Chris Ralph (ph).
MARQUEZ: He just walked to me and we just started chatting about what it's like out here. One, it's gotten cool out here. Noticeably cool. The light is this, sort of, bizarre gray color.
RALPH: Yes.
MARQUEZ: What's going through your mind right now?
RALPH: That it's unreal. And it's, like, different. It's different than twilight. It's -- everything looks different. It's a little freaky, in way, isn't it? I mean you totally understand it. But it's, like, you feel like there's something really special in the air.
MARQUEZ: where have you come from? Why here?
RALPH: I live here.
MARQUEZ: You live here?
RALPH: Yes. Yes. My wife works here on campus. So, we're, like -- we're campusites (ph).
MARQUEZ: I want to show you what this looks like right now in our sun spot. And look at this. It's like a little tiny sliver. Like a nail basically left of the sun. What did they just announce, three minutes to totality here? So, you
can hear the people. They start to applaud when they hear that. I want to give you a sense of what's happening here. Everybody starting to stand up, getting excited to watch this, staring up at the sun.
Something you wouldn't normally do, staring at the sun. We have binoculars that we are using. OK, this is actually very, very cool. We have binoculars that we use that have filters, solar filters on them, so you get a pretty sharp and crisp image of the sun. And it is just a tiny, tiny sliver right now.
[13:15:09]
As soon as it goes full totality, and we'll have about two and a half minutes of totality here in Salem, as soon as it goes full totality, you can actually take your glasses off or the -- you can look directly at the sun and you can see that sort of corona effect.
Let's come back over here to the solar -- can I -- can I hop in here real quick? Two minutes to totality. Two minutes. You can see just how close it is here on this solar spotter. And then if you would, Jordan, look out at the crowd here as they are looking up. I mean it just -- this light is incredible. The coolness is incredible.
While the sky is still blue, it's like there's a gray haze hanging over the sky right now. It's, like, twilight and in a bizarre sort of movie or something. And you're starting to see on the very corner of the sun, sort of -- it looks like -- (INAUDIBLE) or sort of a rough edge, and that is probably the beginnings of what they call the bailey beads (ph), where the sun starts to shine through the canyons and the mountains of the moon. So you're actually seeing -- one minute. One minute they've just announced to totality. The energy is -- is palpable. It's pretty exciting.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my gosh.
MARQUEZ: Wow, it is just --
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: These are live pictures -- Miguel, we're showing our viewers right now live pictures of this total eclipse in Oregon. This is from Lincoln City, Oregon, right now. You can see -- you can see how the moon is really blocking the sun.
You know, David DeVorkin of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, when you see this, what goes through your mind?
DAVID DEVORKIN, SMITHSONIAN NATIONAL AIR AND SPACE MUSEUM: Wow. That's the first word that goes through. But really the prominences. There's three beautiful prominences. They are in the upper right. And you can see bits of the inner corona. It's really fantastic.
MARQUEZ: Incredible! Whoa! DEVORKIN: This is really good because those are beautiful prominences.
Those are gorgeous prominences.
MARQUEZ: Oh, my God!
DEVORKIN: (INAUDIBLE) the sun.
BLITZER: And it will last, that total eclipse, for about two and a half minutes over there in Oregon.
DEVORKIN: That's right. And as it moves the -- as the moon moves across you'll see subtle changes in the structure of the corona that's sort of with the light passing through different parts of the valleys of the moon in the profile. But it's really those three incredible --
BLITZER: This is absolutely --
DEVORKIN: Oh, my God, look at that. That means --
BLITZER: Let me go back -- let me go back to Miguel.
Miguel, it's about to hit completely where you are, right?
MARQUEZ: This is absolutely incredible.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, my God.
MARQUEZ: Look at the (INAUDIBLE) trying to take pictures of this thing. We are in full totality now. You can see these streams coming off of the moon.
Jordan, if you would, look up at the sky. This is absolutely incredible to see for myself.
We're about a minute through totality. This crowd just erupted when it went total. You can see the planes. You can see stars in the sky. This is an unbelievable experience. You can see the planes as they're crossing right in front like it's night. The temperature has dropped between maybe five and 10 degrees.
This is absolutely amazing to witness. I've never seen anything like this.
BLITZER: David DeVorkin, go ahead. Explain what we're seeing right now.
DEVORKIN: Well, we're looking at a number of images from the beginning and the end of totality and we are seeing the crest of the sun coming back here on the right-hand side, and the left-hand side is, they're zooming in, we still see full totality with the corona easily visible. That's something that's visible.
BLITZER: So the sun is beginning to come through in Lincoln City, Oregon.
DEVORKIN: That's right. BLITZER: But in Salem, it's still -- it's total over there.
DEVORKIN: That's right.
MARQUEZ: Wow!
That is absolutely incredible. As it passed totality, this crowd just erupted.
That diamond sort of light just glinting off the side of the moon, absolutely brilliant. And now it's starting to get light again here. This is the weirdest light I have ever seen.
[13:20:05] Excuse me. So what was it like?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was amazing! Unbelievable. And it got dark and cool and the stars were started to come out and -- I don't know, it was just amazing.
MARQUEZ: Just how do you describe this quality of light we're experiencing right now?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Almost like the atmosphere just makes you feel light and happy. I don't know. It's just amazing!
MARQUEZ: It's a completely different feeling. Absolutely incredible.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
MARQUEZ: I don't -- it's -- you can't look at it now without wearing your shades -- your special solar shades.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, you (INAUDIBLE).
MARQUEZ: But just an incredible experience here.
The crowd here, clearly got everything it wanted. You could literally see that corona and those streams coming off of the sun as the moon passed in front of it. Incredible.
Wolf.
BLITZER: So it's what 10:20 a.m. over there on the -- Pacific time where you are, Miguel. During that two and a half minute period it got very dark there, right?
MARQUEZ: It got very dark. You could see planes flying in the sky like you would see at night, them blinking along. You could see stars out.
I was listening for crickets, but the crowd was cheering too much to here crickets. But clearly it was -- it was a weird, very strange, weird moment. Even now the quality of light is very, very strange out here. It's like somebody's take a gray shield or something and just sort of hung it over the sky because it just feels very, very gray and sort of odd out here still. That time of totality it also got very cold, or cooler. About between
maybe five and 10 degrees cooler out here. Incredible how much just that little bit of sunshine going away like that, that quickly, affected the temperature and sort of affected everybody here.
Wolf.
BLITZER: And during that two and a half minute period, Miguel, you could also see some other stars?
MARQUEZ: Oh, yes, you could see -- I don't know if they were -- I'm not as good an astronomer. I don't know if you could see planets or stars, but you could definitely see several sort of bright objects in the sky. They may have been planets. I know that some of the planets will -- you can see apparently when it goes full corona.
But you could literally see several stars in the sky. I mean the planes you could see everywhere. It was -- it was -- it was literally day turning into night. As cliche as that sounds, it was really incredible. You can see why 1,000, 2,000 years ago when this would happen people might think, oh, the gods may not like us. Today, the weather gods are certainly shining on us. It was a perfect, perfect day here in Oregon.
BLITZER: I'm glad it -- there were no clouds that would disturb what you -- all of you were experiencing.
David, you were saying that the, what they saw, other planets --
DEVORKIN: Oh, yes. Venus, was just west of the sun. Very prominent. And certainly brighter stars you can see. It takes a while for your eyes to get totally dark adapted. But in that minute or two, you can get dark adapted enough to see dozens of stars and you can see -- sense their colors. Their differences in color. But it was Venus that I'm sure they saw that was just west of the sun. In front of the sun.
BLITZER: We were watching it. You and me on this big screen TV.
DEVORKIN: Yes.
BLITZER: It's one thing to see it on a TV. I assume it's a totally different thing to see it in person?
DEVORKIN: I'm afraid so. But it took me back. It took me back. Once you see one, it's indelible. It's always there. I mean it was 30 or 40 something years ago I saw my first eclipse and it's still -- I can remember that moment of turning my head skyward at totality and just experiencing a surreal but permanent indelible impression.
BLITZER: Chris Hadfield, you're a former commander of the International Space Station, an astronaut. Just watching, it as we all were, what was it like for you to see that total eclipse?
CHRIS HADFIELD, FORMER COMMANDER OF INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION: It's just really cool, Wolf, to think that the United States is being followed by a moon shadow right now. It's racing across the 2,000 miles an hour across the country. And high up in the air, there are two NASA pilots and two NASA engineers in a WB-57 that are going to chase it, try and keep up with that high-speed moving shadow and take pictures, not just in visible light, but with other type of sensors to get as much information as possible. Chasing that rare ethereal racing shadow across the country. It's an amazing country. Physically beautiful, but scientifically fascinating.
BLITZER: And you think that there will be some important science potentially, some lessons that we will learn from this experience?
HADFIELD: Oh, yes. To try and understand the basic solar physics, to try -- the field that we're seeing when the moon is blocking the sun is the, the ionized glass, the plasma field around the sun that's kind of the whole key idea of how we maybe will generate power in the future with fusion reactors, to try and understand how does plasma actually behave. How does the sun do that? How does it create fusion and generate all of that power? And this gives us like a window of insight that we can't get any other way, especially right close to the surface. Pretty interesting scientific day.
[13:25:16] BLITZER: Yes, very interesting.
And Scott Hawley, you're a professor of physics. What was it like for you to experience at least up front from the TV screen that total eclipse?
SCOTT HAWLEY, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF PHYSICS, BLEMONT UNIVERSITY: Oh, that was so beautiful. That was incredible. To be able to see the prominences, and see the corona come out like that,that was incredible. And here at the studio, I checked to make sure that I hadn't screwed up the time somehow and was stuck inside. But, yes, we've got another hour here in Nashville, thankfully. So we'll get to see that. That was -- that was incredible.
BLITZER: It certainly was. And on the left, you know, David, I just want to point out, though, we're seeing it's leaving Oregon right now. Moving across the country, heading next towards Idaho. You see what's happening in Hailey, Idaho, right now. And that whole -- that whole path across the United States is going to be amazing.
DEVORKIN: That's right. At every single point on the path, they're going to experience what they experienced in Oregon. And that was going through my mind. It was just an amazing realization to see so many people are going to get a chance to see this incredible (INAUDIBLE).
BLITZER: And that path is 70 miles wide.
DEVORKIN: Approximately, yes.
BLITZER: Approximately. Well, let's say you're 80 miles away from it or 90, you'll still experience a lot of it.
DEVORKIN: Well, you'll certainly get close enough to maybe get that bead effect, but not the full totality, not the corona. That you only get in totality. BLITZER: Because here in -- where we are in Washington, D.C., we're
going to experience about 80 percent of that eclipse.
DEVORKIN: That's right.
BLITZER: So what will that be like?
DEVORKIN: Well, there may be some perceptible change in the color of the sky. Probably not because of the air is so humid today that we wouldn't, you know, sense any kind of temperature change. But just being able to see it and enjoy it I think is a tremendous triumph.
BLITZER: But even if you're outside that 100 percent totality --
DEVORKIN: Oh, yes.
BLITZER: You still have to take the precautions with the special glasses?
DEVORKIN: Oh, especially.
BLITZER: Yes.
DEVORKIN: Especially. The moment of totality is the only time you can take your glasses off. Any other point, when you're at partial phase, you must use those glasses.
BLITZER: That's very important. Especially young kids are going to be going outside at that --
DEVORKIN: Absolutely.
BLITZER: Their teachers, their parents have got to tell them, be careful, don't look up at the sky.
DEVORKIN: Right. And as one of our educators says, when you put those glasses on, put them on looking down and then look up and then when you are finished looking up, look down and then, only then, take the glasses off.
BLITZER: These glasses, you know, they're -- everybody -- a lot of people have gotten them.
DEVORKIN: Sure.
BLITZER: But apparently there are some that are sort of fake and they're not really effective, right?
DEVORKIN: They're not as efficient in blocking the light. And it's hard to tell which is which. And you just can't test it with your eyes. But, yes, older-styled glasses like this, sometimes let in a little bit too much infrared, a little bit too much ultraviolet and then there might be ones that are totally bogus. I hope not.
BLITZER: I think there are, unfortunately.
DEVORKIN: No, I'm sorry.
BLITZER: We've been seeing some of those reports.
DEVORKIN: I'm really sorry to hear about that.
BLITZER: And that's a very dangerous situation.
DEVORKIN: Absolutely.
BLITZER: Because that could really screw up your eyes for a long, long time.
DEVORKIN: Absolutely.
BLITZER: We've interviewed people who did observe an eclipse. They didn't have the right glasses. They were 16, 17 years old and then 40, 50 years later they still have little spots that they see.
DEVORKIN: Yes, I mean, you don't feel it.
BLITZER: Yes.
DEVORKIN: You don't feel the burn.
BLITZER: For a while.
DEVORKIN: NO, you don't, until it's too late.
BLITZER: Yes, until -- that's why you've got to be really careful as we're -- as this total eclipse is going across the United States. Just saw it in Oregon. Now moving towards Idaho. Going to be heading towards Missouri, all the way down to South Carolina. This is going to be a wonderful two-hour experience for so many people.
So, Chad, for viewers here in the United States and around the world who are just watching, as we're watching right now, walk us through what's happening right now and what is about to happen.
CHAD MYERS, AMS METETOROLGIST: Nasa.gov has a great little program you can take a look at right here moving right over the western edge of Idaho. But the beginning of the new solar eclipse for Nebraska is now coming almost to Omaha, into Des Moines. It is leaving now the other side there on the Pacific Ocean, getting larger and larger. The sun now coming back.
You can follow this black dot all the way across the country, all the way to Charleston. I suspect we'll have some rain delays or rain problems across parts of Kansas, maybe into parts of Nebraska. Probably a couple of showers here across parts of the Carolinas.
But the rest of the country, Wolf, is really going to be good. I mean we can -- on a summer day, we can get 50 percent or 60 percent cloud coverage and we're just not seeing that. This is what we have right now. This is the blue stripe. It will be north of Boise. And then right through Casper, Wyoming. And finally here, here is the cloud cover and the showers I'm talking
about. We sent Stephanie Elam to St. Joseph, Missouri. Stephanie, I'm sorry about that. You are getting the cloud cover right now. There is still a chance for it to break up, but that's where we're kind of covering things up. St. Joe up to about Marysville.
[13:30:05] South of St. Louis, there's traffic on the road getting out of St. Louis trying to get to totality here and also back over toward Nashville, completely in the clear. Lots of clear skies and
