There has been a lot of talk about clouds ruining the viewing, but I think there is a real chance for those of us in Puget Sound to get a glimpse of the total eclipse sometime during totality.
We are fortunate to have westerly flow over the area, which means that central and southern Puget Sound probably will be in the rain/cloud shadow of the Olympics. The 8:30 PM weather radar imagery tonight shows the rainshadow over Puget Sound clearly (see below).
And the infrared satellite imagery at roughly the same time, shows the approaching showers, but some breaks over the south Sound. Not good over the windward (western) slopes of the Cascades, but much better over the Kitsap Peninsula.
The UW WRF model produces a cloud image that is mean to simulate what a satellite image would look like. The forecast for 4 AM shows a mixed band over Puget Sound (there are breaks) and very good conditions east of the Cascade crest. So if you really want to view the eclipse, head over to Ellensburg.
As I have explained a number of times in this blog, one should never look at a single forecast, but rather make use of an ensemble of many prediction to get an idea of probabilities. Here is an ensemble of cloud forecasts for 4 AM tomorrow. Some of the ensemble members have clouds, some don't. Some have a veil of a thin mid-level deck of clouds.
Based on all these forecasts, I suspect that the odds of seeing the eclipse from Seattle to Olympia between 4 and 6 AM is around 50-50. Good enough to be worth getting up to see an astronomical spectacle that won't be visible for a very, very long time.
