Tonight's Total Lunar Eclipse Likely Obscured by Clouds

North Shore stargazers planning to stay up late to watch tonight's total lunar eclipse might want to reconsider their plans. Clouds from an approaching snowstorm may obscure the skies, according to a weather.com forecast.

Most of the action will take place between midnight-3 a.m. Tuesday morning, which also happens to be the longest night of the year.

"This one is weird in terms of its coincidence with the winter solstice," Larry Ciupik, an astronomer with the Adler Planetarium, told Chicago Breaking News. "There is no particular significance that it occurs on a winter solstice, it just works out that another total lunar eclipse won't fall on the longest night of the year again until the year 2094."

In a total lunar eclipse, the earth passes directly between the sun and moon, blocking any sunlight from reflecting off the moon so the moon appears to vanish. An eclipse happens about once a year, but is only visible in certain hemispheres. Tonight's eclipse will be visible all over North America. The last eclipse that could be seen in North America occurred Feb. 21, 2008.