The August 12, 2026 total solar eclipse in A Rúa (Ourense)

Twenty kilometres cost fourteen seconds. That is the distance between A Rua and Rubia, the longest point in Ourense, and that is the gap between one's 68 seconds and the other's 54: a fifth of totality lost by switching banks within the same valley. On the edge of a shadow band, geography charges dearly.

In exchange, A Rua had the best climate profile of the five featured Ourense municipalities, with 41.2% of days without cloud in the thirty-year count, fourth among the province's fifteen, and 39.4% mean cloud cover. Its horizon clearance, 7.7 degrees, is generous for a hemmed-in valley and far above Carballeda's 4.2, which matters when the Sun is only 11 degrees up. At 643 metres it sits in the lower half of the eclipsed part of the province. The index granted it 62.0 points, fifth in Ourense. Totality stretched from 20:29:15 to 20:30:09 at azimuth 280, and the disc did not come back entire until 21:22:56, the Sun still over the skyline.