Happy Monday! Here at Your Local Weather Authority, we love to tell you when to look up into the night sky to see celestial happenings. We’ve broken down space station passages, planets in close proximity to the Moon and more. This week, you’ll have the opportunity to catch one of our favorite events: a meteor shower. And there’s not just one happening this week; there are two!
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The Orionids peak Wednesday morning. The best time to try to view the shower will be 90 minutes to two hours before sunrise at 7:33 a.m. If you go to a rural location away from city lights, you may be able to see around 10 meteors per hour! No need to look toward a specific spot in the sky, although the radiant point for this shower is in the constellation Orion, which you can see in the eastern sky.
One factor we have to keep in mind when telling you about meteor showers is the moon phase. When the Moon is close to full, it is brighter in the sky and makes it more difficult to pick out the meteors. Luckily, the Orionids won’t have that problem this year as the Moon will be in its waxing crescent phase.
The Leonis Minorids also peak this week, but it’s probably not worth your time. When the shower peaks Saturday morning, it will only produce one meteor per hour.
We also have a front on the way that could produce clouds and rain and obscure your view of the minor shower anyway.
If you manage to capture a photo of either shower, feel free to share it with us! The easiest way to do that is via the Pin It feature on the WSLS weather app.
Switching gears to your forecast, we already told you about the front that could produce some rain this weekend. Before it gets here, the big story will be the unseasonable warmth in our corner of the Commonwealth. Meteorologist Chris Michaels lets you know how warm it could be in our daily forecast article.
You can always get specific forecast details for your zone, whether it’s the Roanoke Valley, Lynchburg area, the Highlands or elsewhere around Southwest and Central Virginia, anytime at WSLS.com/weather. Know your zone!
In case you missed it, we’re posting great weather content on WSLS.com. Here are a few links from the past week to check out:
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-- Justin McKee