Caption: Eclipse paths for total solar eclipses, annular solar eclipses, and hybrid solar eclipses for 2001--2020 and 2021--2040.

Features:

1. An eclipse path is the path of the Moon's umbra on the Earth's surface during a total solar eclipse or over said surface during an annular solar eclipse.

2. Mainly because of the axial tilt Earth's axis from the ecliptic pole, the eclipse paths are curved as the image shows: i.e., curved with respect to straight lines of latitude on a Mercator projection map.

3. Because the Moon can be at any distance up to an Earth's radius above or below the ecliptic plane during an eclipse season, eclipse paths can be at any latitude, even at the Earth's poles.

   If counterfactually the Moon's orbit was in the ecliptic plane, we would have total/annular solar eclipses every new moon, the eclipse paths would be confined to the tropics: i.e, ∼ 23.4 south latitude to ∼ 23.4 north latitude.

4. Note that the eclipse paths are very wide in Arctic and Antarctic. This is probably for two reasons. First and certainly, Mercator projection stetches out all lengths as one moves away from the equator. Second and probably, the umbra gets stretched out when landing on the more tilted surfaces that are far from the equator.

5. A solar eclipse region (umbra and penumbra) sweeps basically eastward in space. The Earth also turns eastward. In this horse race, the solar eclipse region is faster, and so it moves mainly eastward on the surface of the Earth.

   So the umbra on an eclipse path moves mainly eastward on the surface of the Earth.

   Yours truly recalls from somewhere that the umbra on/over the Earth for ∼ 3.5 h at most???.

6. On the Earth's surface, the lunar umbra or eclipse path has a maximum width is 267 km (see Wikipedia: Solar eclipse: Path) and the approximate maximum east-west extend is probably a bit less. The longest totality for any one place is 7 m, 32 s (see Wikipedia: Solar eclipse: Occurrence and cycles; Wikipedia: Solar eclipse: Path).

7. The fiducial minimum eclipse path velocity is the mean orbital velocity of the Moon moving approximately eastward in space minus the tangential speed of a point on the Earth's equator (which is moving exactly eastward at the maximum Earth surface velocity):

                  v = 1.022 - 0.46511 = 0.5569 km/s = 33.41 km/m = 2005 km/h  .
                  

   The actual minimum eclipse path velocity varies a bit depending on various factors and is more typically ∼ 1700 km/h (see Wikipedia: Solar eclipse: Occurrence and cycles).

   The maximum fiducial minimum eclipse path velocity occurs at the Earth's poles where the Earty is NOT rotating at all. The value is, of course 1.022 km/s = 3679 km/h.

8. As the second figure shows, there will a good annular solar eclipse whipping through the western USA on 2023 Oct14.

9. Also as the second figure shows, there will good total solar eclipse whipping across the USA and over Port Colborne, Ontario (yours truly's hometown) on 2024 Apr08.