The 2 August 2027 total solar eclipse in Cortes de la Frontera (Málaga)
Málaga
Within the path of totalityOfficial timings (IGN)
| Moment | Time (CEST) |
|---|---|
| Eclipse begins (C1) | 09:41:16 |
| Totality begins (C2) | 10:46:34 |
| Eclipse maximum | 10:47:48 |
| Totality ends (C3) | 10:49:04 |
| Eclipse ends (C4) | 12:00:57 |
| Duration of totality | 2m 30s |
| Magnitude | 1.07 |
| Sun altitude | 38° |
| Sun azimuth | 96° |
Observing index: 77.8/100
Rank 21 of 105 along the path
Index = 100·(0.5294·duration + 0.2941·sky + 0.1765·view). Duration normalised against 240 s; view normalised logarithmically over the ray-march range. The horizon margin does not weigh in 2027: it comes out identical across all 105 municipalities.
The sky at eclipse time (1996-2025)
- Clear years in the 10:00-11:00 window
- 93.3 %
- Clear years (whole-day average)
- 93.3 %
- Under 20 % cloud cover
- 90.0 %
- Under 10 % cloud cover
- 76.7 %
- Mean low cloud in the window
- 1.0 %
- Years with rain
- 3.3 %
- Mean maximum temperature
- 27.1 °C
- Mean minimum temperature
- 16.1 °C
ERA5 series 1996-2025 via Open-Meteo over cell +36.625_-005.375. Climatology for the window around maximum, not a forecast.
How long totality lasts in Cortes de la Frontera
Totality in Cortes de la Frontera lasts 2m 30s. Of the 105 Spanish municipalities inside the path, 42 get a longer one and 61 a shorter one, which puts Cortes de la Frontera in the 59th percentile of the path. The longest stretch in Spain is Ceuta, with 4m 48s, and the shortest Casarabonela, with 10s.
The path of totality is about 238 km wide as it crosses southern Spain. Cortes de la Frontera sits roughly 97 km north of the centre line and about 21 km from the north limit of totality: driving that far north would drop you out of totality and into a partial eclipse. Going south, on the other hand, lengthens it.
At 2m 30s, Cortes de la Frontera sits in the middle third of the path: far more than a blink, well short of the Spanish maximum. Decide beforehand what you want to look at, because there will not be time to improvise twice.
Timings and duration: Instituto Geográfico Nacional. Path width and distance to the centre line: computed from the two published limits of the path of totality.The Sun, the shadow and the terrain
Maximum eclipse reaches Cortes de la Frontera at 10:47:48 mainland Spanish time. The Sun will be 38° above the horizon at azimuth 96°, that is, towards the east. The magnitude of the eclipse will be 1.07.
That altitude is the deep difference from the 2026 eclipse, which happened with the Sun almost touching the horizon and the terrain to the west deciding who saw totality and who did not. Mid-morning on 2 August the problem disappears: in Cortes de la Frontera the margin between the Sun and the terrain profile in that direction is 36.7°, and across the whole path the tightest margin is Benalauría, at 27.8°. All 105 municipalities clear the visibility test.
The shadow, however, does not arrive from where the Sun is: the umbra comes in from the west-southwest (258°), crossing in from the Atlantic. From Cortes de la Frontera the line of sight in that direction runs 62 km unobstructed, so there is room to watch the shadow arrive as a front sweeping over the landscape: it is one of the most striking moments of the whole event and plenty of people miss it by looking only upwards.
The sky at eclipse time, from 30 years of data
Across the 1996-2025 series, the sky over Cortes de la Frontera was clear during the 10:00-11:00 window —the hour that brackets maximum— in 93.3 % of years. Under a stricter test, less than 20 % cloud cover, the figure is 90.0 %; under 10 % cloud cover, 76.7 %.
The whole-day average, 93.3 %, says practically the same thing as the window: in Cortes de la Frontera the hour of the eclipse does not change the diagnosis, unlike the coast of the Strait, where morning low cloud drags the mid-morning figure down. Mean low cloud in that window is 1.0 %.
The mean maximum temperature for 2 August in this grid cell is 27.1 °C and the mean minimum 16.1 °C, and it rained in 3.3 % of the 30 years. None of this is a forecast: it is climatology, an answer to what is normal here at that hour, not to what the weather will do on the day.
ERA5 series 1996-2025 via Open-Meteo, aggregated over the 0.25° cell containing the municipality. Not a weather forecast.Observing index for Cortes de la Frontera
Cortes de la Frontera scores 77.8 out of 100 on the observing index for this eclipse and ranks 21 of 105. The index weighs three things measured on the spot: the duration of totality (52.94 %), the sky in the window around maximum (29.41 %) and the line of sight in the direction the shadow arrives from (17.65 %).
Its three components, normalised from 0 to 1, come out at 0.625 for duration, 0.950 for sky and 0.951 for view. The one pulling hardest upwards is the view towards the shadow; that is what this town has going for it.
The index ranks the path; it does not replace a forecast. It also knows nothing about access, parking or permits: that fourth component was in the design at 15 % and is not published because the dataset does not exist, so the other three are renormalised rather than padded out with an invented estimate. The horizon margin, which carried 30 % of the 2026 index, does not weigh here: with the Sun at nearly 40° it came out identical in all 105 municipalities.
Nearby municipalities inside the path of totality
- Ubrique10:47:43 · 1m 57s
- Gaucín10:47:48 · 3m 9s
- Benalauría10:47:54 · 2m 42s
- Benarrabá10:47:52 · 2m 58s
- Algatocín10:47:52 · 2m 49s
- Villaluenga del Rosario10:47:47 · 1m 46s
Related guides
- How to watch the eclipse without damaging your eyes
- Thirty years of clouds: where to gamble and where not to