n its latest daily update, the National Weather Service in Paducah is still looking for favorable conditions to view the total eclipse on Monday, as we hopefully get a window of clearer skies between storm systems.

In their eclipse update on Friday morning, meteorologists are calling for 39 percent cloud cover on Monday before noon, improving to just 23 percent coverage from noon until 6 pm, which includes the 2 pm totality.

The question mark is still the timing of Monday evening clouds. The latest estimate is for cloud cover of 54 percent after 6 pm as Tuesday rain approaches.

Meteorologists warn that “another system may spread clouds back into portions of the region later in the afternoon or early evening. The area will be between two systems, so any deviation in the speeds of the systems could still impact cloud cover.”

We have a more optimistic forecast than central and east Texas through southern Arkansas, where meteorologists are predicting an increasing area of dense low clouds along with some thunderstorms.

Clouds are also a bigger part of the forecast in Ohio and Pennsylvania. Clear skies in the path of totality are most likely in northern New England and upstate New York.

Anxiety about getting to the best viewing site could cause thousands of travelers to abandon their long-held reservations in cloudy areas to make a last-minute dash toward Illinois and Indiana. That would only pile on to our already crammed interstates anticipated on Monday, especially after the event ends.

In 2017, Paducah was blessed with virtually cloudless conditions, and skywatchers were treated to more than two solid minutes of the “ring of fire” that only those in the path of totality get to experience. Meanwhile at the same moments in Carbondale, clouds obscured the sight of the eclipse for 15,000 people in Saluki Stadium, until the gloom dramatically parted just in time for the last ten seconds of their 2 minutes and 40 seconds beneath the moon’s shadow.

This year, folks in the center of the shadow’s trek could be blessed with more than four minutes of totality, because the moon is much closer to the earth than it was in 2017.