#1876: Eclipse Searches explain

[Cueball walks up to Megan while holding his smartphone up in his hand. Megan sits in an office chair in front of her desk with an open laptop on it. She turns her head towards him. A footnote to Cueball’s speech is at the bottom right of the panel.]

Cueball: Have you seen this cool map* showing how Google searches for “eclipse” trace the eclipse’s path?

Megan: Yeah!

Megan: But you know what else I noticed?

Cueball: What?

Footnote: *wapo.st/2vkgIBv

[Two panels are on top of each other. In the smaller top panel a colored graph is shown with a blue growing graph and a steeper growing red graph above it. Both are labeled. The x-axis (a black line) has labels and arrows below it in red and blue to indicate time periods. Text above the graph:]

Searches for “eclipse” in the weeks before the eclipse are outpacing searches for “election” in the weeks before the 2016 election.

Red line: Eclipse

Blue line: Election

Red x-axis labels: 2017 →|← July →|← August →

Blue x-axis labels: 2016 - September →|← October →|←

[Behind the top panel is a second larger panel slightly lower end more to the right. The visible part at the bottom of this panel is showing the same line graphs with the one from the election going past the election day. The x-axis labels ranges over a later time. The blue graph has a huge peak at the election day, visible in the part of the panel to the right of the top panel) and this date is written in a blue dot on the label. Similar the date of the Eclipse is written in a red dot. The red graph above the blue still ends in dots before the expected peak, as it is in the future.]

Red line: Eclipse

Blue line: Election

Red x-axis labels: 2017 - July →|← August 21 →

Blue x-axis labels: 2016 - October →|← November 8 →

[Megan with her hands on the laptop and Cueball are both looking at the laptop. Beat panel.]

[Cueball stands again and Megan has taken her hands down from the laptop.]

Cueball: This is gonna be bad, isn’t it?

Megan: If you’re planning to be on the road next Monday, bring water.