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Leonid Meteor Shower Predictions for 30 U.S. Cities for 2001
By Robert Roy Britt
Senior Science Writer
posted: 09:39 am ET
02 November 2001
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Meteor shower forecasts are a lot like weather forecasts, says NASA's Bill Cooke. "They often are not reliable." | MORE LEONID INFO | Leonids 2001 Special Report
History, this year's forecast, photo tips, more Coming Tuesday, Nov. 6: Complete Viewer's Guide for the 2001 Leonid Meteor Shower
| | PICK A CITY NEAR YOU | Albuquerque, NM - Anchorage, AK - Atlanta, GA - Bangor, ME - Billings, MT - Boise, ID - Boston, MA - Chicago, IL - Cleveland, OH - Denver, CO - Detroit, MI - Honolulu, HI - Houston, TX - Las Vegas, NV - Los Angeles, CA - Miami, FL - Minneapolis, MN - New Orleans, LA - New York, NY - Omaha, NE - Philadelphia, PA - Phoenix, AZ - Portland, OR - Raleigh, NC - Sacramento, CA - St. Louis, MO - Salt Lake City, UT - Seattle, WA - Washington, D.C. - Wichita, KS
| And while great strides have been made in recent years, three forecasts for the 2001 Leonids, set to peak early in the morning of Nov. 18, are each different. Cooke, who works at the Marshall Space Flight Center, compiled the three predictions and detailed what can be expected around 30 U.S. cities. The tables inside, provided to SPACE.com by Cooke, list the predicted number of Leonids expected to be seen every fifteen minutes. Sky conditions are assumed to be perfectly clear and extremely dark (like in a desert). The elevation of the Leonid radiant above the horizon, in degrees, is given. The tables do not include the Leonids "background rate," meteors that can be expected before, during and after the peak at any location; these add another 10 to 20 meteors per hour to what most viewers could expect to see. Viewers in most of North America should see at least this background rate during the peak. And most astronomers agree that regardless of where you live in North America, it's worth setting the alarm to get up and watch the early morning show. The three forecasts were made by Peter Brown/Bill Cooke, David Asher/Robert McNaught, and Esko Lyytinen/Tom Van Flandern.
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