We’ve got a lunar eclipse that’s partially visible on Wednesday morning in the Kansas City area. These eclipses are very cool to look at because they cause the moon to illuminate with a red shadow as the eclipse duration wears along.

But there will be a few challenges to this eclipse Wednesday morning.

The first challenge is obviously the weather. This shouldn’t be much of a surprise as it has rained nine days in a row and counting.

While the weather is still suspect, I think there are a couple of things going for us early Wednesday morning. Most of this rain moves south and east along this front. We may also get some clearing just in time to view this eclipse.

Another difficulty will be the timing of the sunrise. Clouds to the east favor us because they may block out the bright light of the sun just enough to allow us to view this eclipse in the western sky.

The second challenge is the timing of all of this. The partial eclipse begins just before 5 a.m. It will be plenty dark by then, but you’ll only see a light shadow at this point.

The red tint of color will be increasing closer to sunrise. Obviously this may be difficult to see as you look at not only the moonset time but the time of the maximum eclipse. We’ll no doubt miss out on those.

But there’s a brief window between 5-6 a.m. that you’ll gradually see that red tint if the weather cooperates.