Cloudflare Radar data confirms that a total solar eclipse on August 12 had a measurable, real-time effect on internet traffic across Europe. The eclipse swept from the North Atlantic over Iceland and northern Spain and Portugal, with a deep partial eclipse visible across the rest of Western Europe near local sunset. It was the first total solar eclipse to cross mainland Europe in twenty years.
Using HTTP request volume in five-minute intervals, Cloudflare compared traffic on eclipse day against a baseline built from the median of the three previous Wednesdays at matching times. The result showed a clear, precise correlation: traffic dipped almost exactly at the moment of maximum obscuration in each country, then rebounded within minutes as the sun reappeared.
Steepest drops along the path of totality
The countries experiencing the deepest eclipse, including Iceland, Ireland, the UK, France, Spain, and Portugal, saw the largest traffic declines, generally in the range of 15% to 30% during the 15-minute window surrounding maximum eclipse. Some individual regions recorded drops as steep as 46.7% from baseline. Iceland, Spain, and Portugal registered the most dramatic decreases overall.
By contrast, countries where the sun was only lightly obscured, such as Sweden, Denmark, Poland, and Switzerland, saw little to no meaningful change. Poland and Denmark returned to normal traffic levels quickly, with Denmark recording the smallest overall shift. Norway and Sweden actually showed slight traffic increases above baseline during the event.
Methodology behind the numbers
To calculate obscuration, Cloudflare determined the apparent angular sizes of the sun and moon and their separation in the sky for each location, then computed the geometric overlap of the two discs every five minutes. This produced both a peak obscuration percentage and a precise moment of maximum eclipse for each region, which were then aggregated to the country level for comparison against traffic totals.
What it means for site operators
The findings are less about network performance and more about human attention. Cloudflare noted that traffic slowed not because of any infrastructure issue, but because people paused online activity to watch the eclipse. For hosting providers and site owners, the data serves as another reminder that large-scale physical world events, from major sporting tournaments to celestial phenomena, can produce short but predictable dips in web traffic that are visible in aggregate request data almost immediately.
Cloudflare said traffic patterns normalized quickly after the eclipse passed, and the broader dataset is available through Cloudflare Radar for those tracking how global events shape internet activity over time.