Eclipse review: Boom for state parks, gloom for Buffalo Niagara (2024)

While there’s not yet a final count, 1 million people did not visit Erie or Niagara counties for the solar eclipse on April 8.

Officials have largely dodged the question of how that lofty projection was determined, instead electing to focus on post-eclipse positives such as economic benefit, visitor safety and smooth traffic.

Tim Collins, the local astronomer who helped spearhead the Buffalo Eclipse Consortium, connected lower-than-expected turnout to the nature of eclipse enjoyment. The final cloudy forecast – which deviated little in the 24 hours before the main event – caused chasers to reroute to cities with better weather along the path of totality, including Burlington, Vt., and Indianapolis.

“That’s just what happens on the day of: everybody just shifts around to where they’re going to get the best view,” Collins said. “If you want to see, you’ve got to leave.”

A staggering number of visitors predicted was accurate in at least one metric: State parks exceeded 1 million visitors in total from April 6 to 9, including 12 parks that reached capacity on eclipse day, Gov. Kathy Hochul said Friday.

“We planned for more than a year to welcome a record number of visitors during the total solar eclipse, and those preparations helped this event go off safely and successfully,” Hochul said in a news release.

Visit Buffalo Niagara and Erie County Executive Mark C. Poloncarz both used the 1 million figure for the region, but Hochul said repeatedly before the eclipse that she expected an influx of 1 million visitors to the state as a whole.

Buffalo and Niagara Falls were the largest cities in the state in the centerline of the path of totality, while other regions in the state were in totality for shorter spans of time.

The governor took in the eclipse from another natural wonder – the “majestic Niagara Falls,” in her words – but takeaways from Western New York were barely mentioned in her follow-up report.

The state’s Office of Information Technology Services was credited for improving the “digital infrastructure” of Niagara Falls State Park by creating a high-speed network for visitors.

What about our state parks?

The announcement added that state parks accommodated 326,500 people on that date alone. State park campgrounds were fully booked for April 7 and 93% booked for the next day, Hochul said.

State parks nearest to Buffalo to reach capacity were Stony Brook, about 90 minutes away, and Seneca Lake and Cayuga Lake state parks, both about two hours away. The vast majority at capacity were in either central or upstate New York. Two parks each were full in Clinton, Jefferson and Essex counties.

“People across the state heeded the warnings, arriving early and staying late to enjoy the many wonders that the Empire State has to offer,” said state Department of Transportation Commissioner Marie Therese Dominguez.

An official number of visitors statewide and locally will not be available for some time, said Matthew Janiszewski, upstate press secretary for the governor. He said Empire State Development will work with tourism partners around New York to tabulate an overall estimate.

200,000 in Ontario

Buffalo Niagara wasn’t alone in predicting big crowds for the eclipse.

Niagara Falls, Ont., officials also anticipated as many as 1 million people would visit that side of the international border on eclipse day.

Mayor Jim Diodati told The Buffalo News that crowd observations made April 8 by police and parks administrators, including through the use of helicopters and drones, determined that about 200,000 people watched the total eclipse from the city.

“It’s definitely the biggest crowd we’ve ever had,” the mayor said. “However, it wasn’t the million that we were originally anticipating.”

Diodati said he believes the crowd could have reached the initial estimate if not for two factors: the cloudy conditions and the decision by the regional government late last month to put in place a precautionary state of emergency for Niagara Falls in advance of the eclipse.

“Just before the the Easter-long weekend, they did that in isolation without consulting with us,” he said. “And, unfortunately, the outcome was that it scared people away. It was instantaneous cancellations of hotel rooms and restaurant reservations.”

Weather drives attendance at Niagara Falls throughout the year, Diodati said, let alone for the once-in-a-lifetime total eclipse.

“In our area, as in Western New York, it’s a very strong rubber-tire market, meaning people and vehicles and vans can get there pretty quickly,” he said. “And we’re within a day’s drive of almost half the population of North America. So the weather forecast has a huge impact on attendance any day of the week and, especially, during the eclipse, when you’re looking to see the wonderful spectacle in the sky.”

Diodati said all of the attention the eclipse brought to Southern Ontario should only help to boost the international tourism trade that still hasn’t fully recovered from the Covid-19 pandemic.

And there was another bit of sunshine for the city.

Niagara Falls, Ont., on April 8 set an official Guinness World Record for “largest gathering of people dressed as the sun,” with 309 participants, breaking the previous record of 287 set in 2020.

Why weren’t they here?

If Buffalo got even half of the possible 1 million visitors, “we’re in trouble, right?” Collins, the local astronomer, told The News before the eclipse.

“My suspicion is that everybody who did come in here, if they had a rental car, they used it,” he said last week.

Collins was on a personal mission for weeks before April 8 to inform residents and businesses located along the centerline, the middle of the path of totality, that they were in the best location to see the eclipse.

The centerline is where eclipse chasers want to be, and he told residents to prepare for increased traffic, based on what has happened in other cities that previously experienced a total solar eclipse.

Traffic jams did not materialize, even for Collins. He said traffic was not too heavy, and it didn’t take more than an hour to leave the Buffalo Outer Harbor after he experienced the eclipse.

They went thataway

If eclipse chasers didn’t crowd as predicted into Buffalo Niagara or Niagara Falls, Ont., where did they flock to instead?

Anecdotal impressions and news reports indicate more travelers went to Indiana, Ohio, northwest Pennsylvania and northern New England to view the total eclipse once it became clear that those communities would offer better views of the eclipse.

Those regions, like ours, for the most part are still tabulating a precise eclipse crowd count. But some figures are available.

The Indianapolis Motor Speedway reported more than 50,000 people – from all 50 states and 33 countries – watched the eclipse from that venue.

Cleveland officials were expecting 200,000 for the total eclipse and tens of thousands more for other events happening April 6 to 9 – the women’s college basketball Final Four and the Cleveland Guardians home opener.

“We’re in the process of collecting data to inform a visitation/economic impact study. The timing for release of that information is expected to be this summer,” Emily Lauer, a vice president with Destination Cleveland, said in an email. “What I can tell you is that we are confident that our region attracted thousands of visitors over the weekend and through eclipse day.”

Vermont and New Hampshire had the best views of the total eclipse on the East Coast.

This led to large crowds converging on small towns and cities in a part of New England not well served by highways. Motorists complained on social media and in news articles of lengthy, post-eclipse traffic jams on roads in those states.

“9 hr drive home from Newport, VT through the worst traffic I’ve ever seen but it was totally worth it,” one eclipse watcher, Richard Chen, wrote on X.

A Massachusetts family that left northern New Hampshire at 7 p.m. April 8, to start a drive home that normally takes three hours, didn’t get back until 6 the next morning, according to Boston.com. At one point, it took five hours to drive 5 miles.

Even worse, they lost cell service for a good part of the 11-hour, marathon commute.

Still, Mark Morgan told the news site, “It was worth it.”

Correction: An earlier version of this article stated Cleveland officials expected 1 million visitors for the total eclipse and other events that weekend, based on a report from a local TV station. Cleveland tourism officials on Monday said the station's report was inaccurate and this article has been updated.