For the first time in five or six years, there are no unreasonable, or wildly optimistic expectations of Leonid activity. (Maybe the theorists can't bring themselves to stick their hand in the cookie jar just one more time.) Sure, we may still see triple digit ZHRs, but we may not. After all, rates are expected to return to normal in the coming years, and those theorists tell us not to expect another once-in-a-lifetime storm for 100 years.
On the other hand, we are only five years past the perihelion of the parent comet, Comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle. The Leonids may still have a surprise or two shoved up its sleeves.
This year a third quarter moon will rise with the Leonid radiant. If you do plan to observe - and you should, from the 16/17th through the 19/20th - do not face that moon!
Typically a rather dull, uninspiring meteor shower, the Leonids' first significant increase was noted in 1994, when there was a short outburst of about 80 meteors per hour. But the real show didn't take the stage until 1998, when the downpour of meteors took a back seat to a glut of fireballs.
In Ohio it was, as usual, cloudy. On the night of the peak I stood out in my front yard as the radiant rose, cursing the clouds that began to thicken like oatmeal in a pot of boiling water. I did spot a single blood-red fireball, blazing out of the radiant, shooting low across the eastern horizon.
In 1999 the Leonids "roared" to life over Europe and the Middle East, with a peak downpour of about 3,600 meteors per hour. A half planet away, and several hours later, I counted about 40 per hour. Such was my lot in in life.
2000 was more of the same; the Leonids rained down over distant lands. In Asheville, North Carolina, I was treated to snow flurries. In my journal, I mused I would never see a meteor storm. But then I never knew I would be living at 7,000 feet, near Donner Summit, in California.
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