After consulting Astrospheric, we decided to head to Shenandoah National Park to see the Jupiter and Saturn conjunction that is currently taking place. Tomorrow is supposed to be the closest that they will appear in the sky but tonight’s forecast was more favorable. Also, today is the first day that any of Skyline Drive, the road through the park, was open after the storm a few days ago. We were hoping to see some snow!
While it was overcast for most of the drive to the park, once we arrived it looked good! The sky was clear to the southwest where the planets would be after sunset! But then, it got quite cloudy. It ended up being an absolute failure, but we did get to see some pretty snowy scenery!
It turns out that the snow conditions really varied depending on exactly where you were in the park. Some areas had just a bit of snow on the ground with bare trees, while in other areas, the trees were completely snow covered. And in other areas they were encased in ice. We ended up driving through about half way through the middle portion of the park. It’s all we had time for!
The most beautiful areas that we saw were where the trees were encased in snow and ice! It was similar to what we saw the day after the storm further north in Maryland but with more snow and more ice. Jewell Hollow Overlook had the most beautiful trees of all the areas that we visited today. It was simply stunning!
We didn’t focus too much on the scenery that was further away. The snow and ice covered trees were simply more interesting to look at!
Around sunset, it was pretty apparent we weren’t going to see Jupiter or Saturn. We were hoping there might be some good color as parts of the clouds seemed rather thin. There was a tiny bit of color but that’s it. The snowy and icy trees still looked good though!
That little strip of color on the horizon is the most color we saw this evening for sunset!
https://gallery.thesun.arfycat.com/Galleries/USA/Virginia/Shenandoah-National-Park-2020-12/