The August 12, 2017 total solar eclipse was a marvelous thing to witness. I was lucky enough to enjoy it while having a fine cigar in my backyard.
A few things I've discovered about it. The center (my term for the exact longitudinal alignment of the sun and moon) of the eclipse occurred near the longitude of St. Louis, MO. If you check
https://www.timeanddate.com/moon/phases/usa/st-louis you'll find that solar noon and the lunar meridian crossing of the new moon occur at the same time as one would expect.
I appreciate @Tom Bishop for turning me on to the mooncalc website. One can gather great data there. Using that site, I was able to iterate that at the time of the center of the eclipse the moon was directly above between 12 deg. 18'-20' N lattitude. Just doing a little math with the sun traveling .26 deg/day, the sun would be approximately 8 deg. 30' N at that time. That alignment was able to cast the umbra as far north as 44 deg.
Now according to the WIKI: "When the moon is below the sun's altitude and near it, the moon is dark and a New Moon occurs."
So this raises the following question. Twice a year, the sun and new moon approach the equator at the same time. Near the Sept. equinox in 2025 they are within a degree of each other and within a degree of the equator. How could this alignment not cause a total solar eclipse at that time as well as the numerous other times the sun and new moon would align in locations nearer the equator and closer to each other than the nearly 4 degree difference witnessed in August 2017?