Don’t forget to look for the Perseid Meteor shower tonight! These pesky clouds should begin to break up and even clear out after dark. You will have to deal with a bit of a bright moon, but you will still be able to see some meteors. The meteor shower peaks toward the pre-dawn hours of Sunday, but they’ll be flying all night. In fact, you’ll still be able to see some on clear nights for another couple of weeks, becoming fewer with time. This is one of the best meteor showers of the year, so get out and look up! I’ve seen as many as 200 of these during a Perseid meteor shower several years ago, but I was in the Smokies where we had rented a cabin, and where it was VERY dark (VERY dark! ha). Look for dark places, away from lights. Give your eyes time to adjust to the darkness, too. That can make a big difference. Below is a current weatherTAP visible satellite image of TN. The clouds over Illinois and Indiana are moving south behind the front. They represent the point at which drier air comes in. Those cumulus clouds that are lined up from north to south will disappear after the sunsets, since they’re generated by heat from the sun. In fact, a lot of the clouds you see in this image are driven by the heat of the day and will collapse at sunset. Good luck and I hope you see more meteors than you can count! 🙂
