Oklahoma’s Longest Eclipse of the Century Is Coming

Oklahoma just barely got over the solar hangover from our last total eclipse, and the calendars are already out again. You’d think we were talking about football schedules the way folks are marking dates and planning road trips for the next big sky show.

The thing about eclipses is, they turn perfectly normal people into parking-lot astronomers. We dig out folding chairs, welders’ helmets, and camera tripods that haven’t seen daylight in a decade, all to watch daylight disappear for a couple of minutes.

It’s part science, part spectacle, and part neighborhood block party.

We just had one not that long ago, and like most Oklahomans, you either saw it in full or caught it in between clouds and muttered, “Well, that was neat,” before going back inside. But here’s the tease: the next one is already making the rounds in news stories and stargazer circles — and this one’s not just any eclipse.

Mark your calendars for August 12, 2045.

Yep, we're already planning almost exactly twenty years from now.

This isn’t just a “call in sick for the afternoon” event, this will be one for the record books. The longest total solar eclipse of the century, with over six minutes of totality in some places.

If you think traffic in SEOK was bad for the last one, wait until half the country is headed to the same patch of open prairie.

So, for now, put it on the far corner of your mental calendar. We’ll still have birthdays, elections, and a couple of presidential libraries built before then. But when the day comes, Oklahoma will once again be looking up, and for once, not because a thunderstorm’s rolling in.