A weather briefing at T-minus 3 hours and counting finds the forecast for tonight's planned Minotaur 1 launch from the NASA Wallops Flight Facility is improving. Meteorologists now predict a 70 percent chance of good weather as the three-hour launch window opens at 8 p.m. down on the Virginia Eastern Shore.

The only potential show-stopper they see are some storm cells drifting their way from the DC area this afternoon. The storms could spoil the launch, or they could weaken and dissipate as another one did this afternoon. Here's the radar loop.

The view from Baltimore still looks pretty cloudy. We may well have too much cloud between us and Wallops to see this shot. But it's sure worth a look this evening. The rocket plume would be bright enough to shine through thin clouds. But these big cumulus heaps? Maybe not.

You can follow the countdown via Twitter and a NASA Webcast. Details in the previous post. Remember, these Webcasts are delayed as they find their way to your computer, so the online countdown lags behind the real thing by 15 seconds or more. Get outside and start looking a minute or two before the Web countdown gets to zero, at least.

By my watch - which is linked by radio to the NIST atomic clock in Colorado (such a geek) - the Wallops Webcast is currently running 16 seconds behind the true time.

Here's how the cloud cover looked from orbit this afternoon.