WACO, Texas (April 16, 2024) – Spring in Central Texas can be a beautiful season with abundant wildflowers, outdoor sporting events and bright blue skies – but it also can bring an increase in severe weather, including thunderstorms with lightning, hail, strong winds, heavy rains and heightened tornado risks.

The demand for a Baylor education has never been higher. We saw that last fall, when the university received more than 56,000 applications for Fall 2024 — and we saw it again Saturday, when more than 6,000 prospective students and family members were on campus for Premiere.

During Eclipse Over Texas on Monday, 50+ representatives of Baylor’s Department of Physics were on hand at McLane Stadium to assist and educate those in attendance. We asked a couple of them — Dr. Lorin Swint Matthews (BS ’94, PhD ’98) and Dr. Barbara Castainheria Endl — to help us understand what we saw during the eclipse.

This week has provided a tremendous opportunity to showcase Baylor and the Waco community across the United States and around the world with Monday’s total solar eclipse – which was even more spectacular than I could ever have imagined.