The August 12, 2026 total solar eclipse in Potes (Cantabria)

Potes led the Cantabrian index with 72.2 points while holding the most compromised horizon of every municipality in this batch that the model treats as observable: 6.2 degrees of terrain in front of the Sun. With the disc at 9 degrees, the effective margin came down to 2.8.

The town sits at 426 metres of average elevation at the bottom of a funnel, and the proof of how narrow that margin was lies 6.2 kilometres away: Cillorigo de Liébana, with an almost identical 98 seconds of totality, drops to -4.7 degrees and the model declares it blocked. A few kilometres and a few degrees separated a leading entry from a discarded one. What kept Potes in first place were its 99 seconds and its 20.6 per cent clear days, the best figure in the Liébana group across the 1996-2025 series, though twenty Augusts in a hundred guarantee nothing and never amounted to a forecast.