Anticipation and anxiety build ahead of the total solar eclipse
Millions of people will tilt their heads skyward on Monday, marveling at a total solar eclipse. The moon will cross the sun and block its light for a few fleeting moments, creating a communal celestial experience that will not again be so accessible to people in the United States, Canada or Mexico for decades.
The total solar eclipse’s path — the expanse where the moon fully obscures the sun — stretches from Mexico’s Pacific Coast to the fringes of Atlantic Canada, passing through dozens of major cities where authorities are preparing for an influx of visitors eager to experience what may be a once-in-alifetime opportunity.
In New York, signs along the Thruway urged travelers to “Arrive Early, Stay Late” to avoid the inevitable jams that will clog routes to and from prime viewing areas along the eclipse’s path.
Closer to Niagara Falls, which is in the path of totality, the second half of the message switched to a more realistic “Expect Delays.”
It will be the first total solar eclipse visible from the United States since 2017, and there will not be another visible in the lower 48 states until 2044. On Monday, much of the country is expected to take in the view. In 2017, a majority of American adults watched the eclipse in person, according to an estimate by Jon D. Miller, a research scientist at the University of Michigan. The figure, 154 million, is far beyond the audience of even the most-watched Super Bowl (123.4 million this year). And the path of totality for Monday’s eclipse crosses over more than twice the number of people as did the 2017 event.
Many eclipse-gazers are anxiously checking the weather forecast for Monday. National Weather Service forecasters on Sunday morning said that nearly everyone along the path in the United States will have at least some chance of clouds obscuring their view.
Forecasters said there was a high likelihood of clouds in Central Texas, and had a growing concern about severe storms across much of the state. They saw grounds for optimism in Little Rock, Ark., and the outlook for Cleveland was improving. But from there to Buffalo much remains uncertain, and the picture may not become clearer until hours before the eclipse.
One exception was Maine, where the agency’s forecaster said that people in the state had “scored a nearly perfect day” to view the eclipse.
Cities across the country have canceled school, and millions of protective glasses are being distributed or sold. Scientists have warned people never to look directly at the sun without protective eyewear because serious retinal injuries can occur.
Across North America, there are a wealth of planned special events, including street parties in Mexico, a study of animals at an Indianapolis zoo and an eclipse display at Niagara Falls.
In Mazatlán, the coastal Mexican city that will be one of the first places where people can see the eclipse from land, hotels are at capacity, cruise ships are offering special eclipse experiences and the seaside promenade is teeming with tourists.
Authorities said they were expecting about 120,000 people to visit Mazatlán for the event. The few hotel rooms available were going for triple or quadruple normal rates.
“This is where the eclipse hits land,” said Greg Schmidt, the director of NASA’s Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute, who arrived in Mazatlán several days ago with a team that will livestream the eclipse from the city.
Mr. Schmidt selected Mazatlán about two years ago as his team’s site for following the eclipse. He sounded sanguine about the choice compared with other places along the eclipse’s path; weather forecasts were favorable for high cirrus clouds.
“We should at least be able to see totality through that,” he said, contrasting Mazatlán with Texas, which “is now showing a lot of problems weather-wise.”
In Dallas, more than 1,000 miles away from Mazatlán, many people were already resigning themselves to not being able to see the eclipse, and some talked about venturing to see the next one in Iceland or Spain in 2026.
Eric Isaacs, the president of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C., which was hosting a three-day feast of science and sightseeing in Dallas for donors and friends of the institution, said the group’s viewing location had already been shifted to a mansion where people would be able to gather inside if they needed to get out of the rain.
In Buffalo, Martin Penkala, 60, an aide at the Buffalo Psychiatric Center and an amateur astronomer, wouldn’t let a gloomy weather forecast interfere with his excitement.
“We will still see the total darkening for three minutes,” he said at an eclipse-inspired concert at the Buffalo Philharmonic on Saturday night. “That will be stupendous!”
Closer to the end of the eclipse’s path, Canada’s Niagara region declared a state of emergency 10 days before the event, allowing officials to expedite safety and police resources if needed.
The emergency declaration added to the mild sense of panic that has settled over Niagara Falls and several large cities within a twohour drive, including Hamilton and Toronto in Ontario.
In New York State, Jessica DeCerce, the governor’s director of interagency operations, said officials were preparing for the eclipse as they would for a weather catastrophe. The total eclipse will be visible across a wide swath of the state. New York City is outside the path of totality, but it will experience about a 90% eclipse around 3:25 p.m. Eastern.
Ms. DeCerce has been nicknamed the state’s “eclipse czar” and has been spending the last two years thinking of everything that could go wrong: traffic gridlock, a lack of bathrooms, shaky cellphone service.
She did not want to name one spot she thought would be best to view the eclipse, but she said it would be difficult to beat Niagara Falls.
“Can you imagine a better place to watch this than in front of one of the world’s natural wonders?” she said.