Morning Eclipse Nowcast

Morning has broken and things are looking good along the path of totality over the western U.S.  It's early for a visible loop, but as can be seen below, a band of mid and upper-level clouds is slowly but surely exiting the totality path area of far western Wyoming and Idaho.  

Here's a look at the GOES-16 geocolor imagery from CIRA at 13:32 UTC (7:32 AM) and it looks pretty good too.  There are some thin patchy clouds over portions of the Idaho panhandle and western Montana moving southward that are just barely discernible in the imagery.   

Source: CIRA

You couldn't ask for a better forecast from the operational HRRR than the one below, valid about a half hour after totality.  No clouds predicted along the entire track from Wyoming to the Pacific Coast. 

Source: ESRL

That forecast might be a bit optimistic as there may be a few high clouds around over Idaho and the remnants of the cloud band evident that is over southern Idaho and western Wyoming this morning could linger near and along the totality track over central Wyoming, as indicated by the NAM forecast below.  

Nevertheless, conditions look quite good for the totality track from Jackson to the Willamette Valley with just the threat of some thin clouds spilling down from the north.  You can see these clouds, for example, in the Montana Snowbowl web cam image below.  

Good viewing to those of you along the path.

Addendum @ 8:25 AM MDT

Now that the sun is a little higher, visible satellite imagery shows quite a bit of smoke in the valleys of the central Idaho Mountains.

Based on web cams, I don't think this smoke will obscure the sun, although it may redden it.  Hopefully it won't spoil any views.