The terminal guidance of the Spice 2000 and Popeye are pretty much the same. So if the Spice could be used, Popeye would be in the same weather conditions as well. But this is only in the "drop and forget" mode, basically fire and forget. Vstol has already explained this.
But if you want to insert a man in the loop, then the pilot can use a datalink to communicate with the missile. The TV sensor will allow the pilot to see the target and make course adjustments if necessary. If Air HQ wanted the Popeyes to be fired with a man in the loop for a specific reason, then the cloud cover will be enough to abort the strike. Since the Spice only glides while the Popeye is powered, the accuracy of Popeye during endgame would be higher.
So I would assume planning was done hours and hours ago, perhaps well before dusk the previous day, based on the hope that the cloud cover before dawn would be clear enough for Popeye to be used with "man in the loop" setting.
Of course this is considering what the article said is true and the Popeye strike was aborted due to the weather. But one can also assume the strike was aborted due to many other reasons, like a failure to launch, perhaps only a backup in case most of the Spice failed etc. It's also possible that the missile was meant to flatten some structures within the camp after the Spice had struck in order to leave behind some verifiable proof, but was aborted at the final moment in order to give the Pakistanis a PR escape route. Who knows?
