The 2 August 2027 total solar eclipse: a decision, not a date
On the morning of 2 August 2027 the Moon's shadow crosses from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean — Spain, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and the tip of Somalia. Near Luxor it lasts 6m 23s, the longest totality left this century. The astronomy is settled and identical on every site. What differs is the answer to the only question that matters: where should you actually stand?
2 August 2027
Eclipse day approaches
Greatest totality
6m 23s
NASA catalogue, near Luxor. Magnitude 1.079, saros 136.
Places we have run the geometry for
12 + 2
12 inside totality, 2 that popular lists put inside but the umbra misses.
What actually decides
Cloud, then minutes
August cloud runs from ~1% to worse than a third along the path; duration only from 1m42s to 6m23s.
Decide in this order
- Cloud first. Six minutes under cloud is zero minutes. Rank countries by August cloud odds before anything else — the spread there is bigger than the spread in duration.
- Then duration. Inside the clear-sky set, take the minutes: the gap between Luxor and the Spanish coast is real.
- Then access. A hub airport is resilience — missed connections recover, day-of repositioning is possible.
- Then travel risk. Some of the longest totalities on this path are in places governments advise against visiting. That is a decision, not a footnote.
The full framework, with the profiles it produces: how to choose.
The path, and your spot on it
Tap anywhere for computed timings and duration at that point. Pin it if you like — the live map on the home page carries the same engine.
Country by country — the verdicts
Every number below is read from the same records as the comparison table and each location page — durations from NASA Besselian elements (method), cloud from Jay Anderson's TSE-2027 analysis.
Europe
Tarifa · Spain
Totality 4m 39s · August cloud 26%
Closer to the centreline than Cádiz and it shows: 4m 39s against Cádiz's 2m 54s, at the price of slightly worse strait-cloud odds and the smallest room stock on this coast.
Gibraltar · Gibraltar (UK)
Totality 4m 27s · August cloud 26%
Dramatic Rock backdrop and an airport on the doorstep, but tiny capacity and mid-pack cloud odds.
Cádiz · Spain
Totality 2m 54s · August cloud 12%
The easy-access pick: shortest flight for most of Europe, deep infrastructure, decent odds — at the cost of less than half the totality Egypt gets.
North Africa
Luxor · Egypt
Totality 6m 20s · August cloud 1%
The headline destination and deservedly so: within a few seconds of the global maximum, sub-1% cloud, real infrastructure. The trade is crowds, premium pricing and brutal heat.
Benghazi · Libya
Totality 6m 09s · August cloud 3%
The best sky on the path and the hardest country on the path. For nearly everyone, Egypt delivers the same sky without the risk profile.
Kerkennah Islands · Tunisia
Totality 5m 38s
The overlooked sweet spot: within 45 seconds of Luxor's duration, Mediterranean logistics, no desert heat extremes — but island capacity punishes late planners.
Siwa Oasis · Egypt
Totality 5m 29s · August cloud 2%
The connoisseur pick: the climatology author's own shortlist, dust-safe skies, unforgettable setting — bought with a long road and tiny capacity.
Tangier · Morocco
Totality 4m 50s
Nearly two extra minutes over Cádiz for one ferry hop — the best duration-per-effort trade in the western half, if you position away from the stratus-prone shore.
Tétouan · Morocco
Totality 4m 50s
Backup to Tangier rather than a first choice — same sky risk, thinner logistics.
Melilla · Spain (North Africa)
Totality 4m 33s · August cloud 39%
On paper convenient, in climatology the weakest Spanish-jurisdiction option on the path.
Tozeur · Tunisia
Totality 1m 42s
A cautionary entry, kept on the list deliberately: same country as Kerkennah, one-third the totality. Edge-of-path geography costs more than any other single decision.
Middle East
Jeddah · Saudi Arabia
Totality 5m 56s · August cloud 4%
The Gulf-side heavyweight: nearly six minutes, hub airport, e-visa — the strongest option east of Egypt for most travellers.
Aden · Yemen
Partial only — the umbra misses it
Correction over earlier path lists: the umbra misses Aden — the city sees a deep partial (magnitude 0.958), not totality. With advise-against-all-travel advisories on top, nothing here supports an eclipse trip.
Where the popular lists are wrong
Computing a duration is easy and every good tool does it. Getting the edge of the path right is where lists go wrong — and a city on the wrong side of that edge never goes dark. Two that still circulate as 2027 totality destinations: Aden and Berbera, both partial only. We found them by running the geometry instead of copying a list. That is the job here: check the shadow, then weigh cloud, access and risk into one answer.
Catalogue values: NASA GSFC eclipse catalogue (SEdecade tables), fetched 2026-08-09. Local circumstances: our own computation from NASA Besselian elements, validated against published tables — see methodology and the engine.