shadow-band

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. One of a series of roughly parallel broken bands, alternately bright and dark, seen during a solar eclipse traveling with an irregular flickering motion over every light-colored surface for a few moments just before and just after the totality. They are usually from 6 inches to 2 feet wide, and are probably due to the light from the then exceedingly narrow strip of the sun's disk shining through ‘knots’ of unequal density in the air, and carried by the wind.