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Ain't No Sunshine

 








800 years in the making.  The 2020 Great Conjunction of Jupiter, Saturn and the Moon.  A cosmic spectacle, they say.  I can't even remember what day it is or if I took my pills, so I add this event to my Google calendar, which manages my life these days.

The day has arrived.  December 21, winter solstice.  The shortest day of the year, and as expected, my Google assistant reminds me to check the skies.  Several times I check the back yard, standing out in the snow without my coat and accompanied by my dogs, who wonder what I'm looking for.  They don't see any rabbits in the yard, I don't see any stars, so we all go back inside.

My half-glass full husband sweetly offers to drive me somewhere that it's not cloudy.  Seems reasonable.  I check with my Facebook friends in New York to see if anyone else can see the blessed event.  Nada.

Then I Google (there's that company again) "Syracuse NY and Great Conjunction" and find this doom and gloom article that proclaims a miracle would be needed to see this planetary juxtaposition.  Turns out that the cloud cover in the sky is close to 100%.  But if I drive to the state of Virginia, there is a 50% chance that the sky will only be partially cloudy. 🙄

There is still hope, right?  This is supposed to be visible through the end of December.  Guess again, my friend. Syracuse is Upstate NY's cloudiest city, ranking eighth from the bottom in the US in terms of possible sunshine. Syracuse gets 44 percent of available sunshine throughout the year. This time of year, it's at its worst: Sunshine peeks through the clouds just 23 percent of the time in December. While people invented grunge and think they have the market cornered on despair, they are number 9 in cloud cover.  We are number 8. Suck on that, Eddie Vedder.

Cloudiest places in US, by percent of available sunshine

RankLocationState% sunshine
1Mt. WashingtonNH32
1QuillayuteWA32
3JuneauAK33
4HiloHI41
5NomeAK42
5PittsburghPA42
7AnchorageAK43
8SyracuseNY44
9ColumbusOH45
9SeattleWA45
11Grand RapidsMI46
12BinghamtonNY47
12BuffaloNY47
12ClevelandOH47
15AlpenaMI48
15Sault Ste. MarieMI48
15RochesterNY48
18BurlingtonVT49
19AlbanyNY50
19LansingMI50
19DuluthMN50
19ToledoOH50
19PortlandOR50
19AvocaPA50
25IndianapolisIN51

Source: National Centers for Environmental Information

It's 2020, par for the course.  If I can unpack my patience, I will be able to view this event in 2080, when I'm 115.  Perhaps at that time Mars will be colonized and I will be able to view it from my nursing home window located on the 4th planet from the sun.
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