Huge crowds await a total solar eclipse in North America. Clouds may spoil the view WSOC TV [Video]

MESQUITE, Texas — (AP) — Millions of spectators along a narrow corridor stretching from Mexico to the U.S. to Canada eagerly awaited Monday’s celestial sensation — a total eclipse of the sun — even as forecasters called for clouds.

The best weather was expected at the tail end of the eclipse in Vermont and Maine, as well as New Brunswick and Newfoundland.

It promised to be North America’s biggest eclipse crowd ever, thanks to the densely populated path and the lure of more than four minutes of midday darkness in Texas and other choice spots. Almost everyone in North America was guaranteed at least a partial eclipse, weather permitting. The show gets underway in the Pacific shortly before noon EDT.

In Texas, the south-central region was locked in clouds, but it was a little bit better to the northeast, said National Weather Service meteorologist Cody Snell.

“Dallas is pretty much a 50-50 shot,” he said.

The cliff-hanging …