The August 12, 2026 total solar eclipse in Contamina (Zaragoza)

Contamina and Alhama de Aragón lie 2.9 kilometres apart and, as far as the model was concerned, they were indistinguishable: the same 103 seconds of totality, the same 56.0% of clear days in the 1996-2025 series, the same 6.2 degrees of horizon clearance and the same index result, 84.3 points, seventh in Spain. Five metres of elevation, 715 against 710, is all that separated them in the table.

That tie is itself the interesting fact, because it marks the limit of what an index built from a climate grid and a digital terrain model can resolve. Below three kilometres the decision is no longer statistical: it belongs to the specific spot, the height of the poplars along the river and the bearing of the track you watch from. Contamina was also the westernmost of the five best-scoring Zaragoza municipalities, and its totality began at 20:29:36, one second before its neighbour's, exactly as that longitude implies.