Besides choosing the right location for this kind of photography, there are conditions which allow or disallow doing it. To a good extend it is plan-able, but at last it will also need some luck. Below I tried to summarize the factors to use for prediction of such.

Mid to high level clouds

Clouds are an important factor when planning to shoot sunrise or sunset pictures. Without any clouds in the sky, the scene might look dull. Too many or high percentange of low clouds will mostly cause problems (unless it’s getting the scene dramatic) as colours won’t be present. A good rule-of-thumbs is to have around 30% to 70% coverage with mid to high clouds.

In addition, the sun needs to find it’s way through. Means, it could be fine on the photographer’s end, but at the horizon the sun is blocked by a band of clouds, then it probably won’t make it a good scenery.

Clear-Outside is a fantastic tool to get a prediction here.

Clean Air

The best time for good shots is after rain showers or windy hours, then the air is clean and allowing for nice scenery dispersing the blue light.

Low Humidity

Low humidity will produce more popping colours as with higher humidity the colours will get more washed out. As winter season has typically lower humidity, it’s more suited for this kind of scenery.

Calm Winds

Wind can do everything to a nice sunrise or sunset. It can enhance it or totally destroy it. Changes in the wind direction can cause the clouds to build ripples. The light reflected by such ripples can be more intense as the colour tones will vary more than with plain clouds. Also wind can clean the air which will help in the scenery.

Windfinder is a great tool to predict.