The Leonid meteor shower of 2001 was one of the more amazing natural displays I have ever witnessed. Even in suburban New Jersey with high levels of light pollution we literally saw hundreds of meteors per hour over a period of about four hours.
The Leonid display is caused when the Earth crosses the path of a comet known as Tempel-Tuttle. Geometry determines the intersection which takes place around Novemer 18 every year. Since the average display is about 10 to 20 meteors over background the display is usually only observed by enthusiasts.
It turns out that every time the comet makes a close pass at the Sun a very dense stream of comet stuff is thrown off forming an elongated path that is probably only a few Earth diameters thick. Periodically the Earth's orbit intersections one of these super dense trails and a meteor storm results.
Lenoid meteors are very fast hitting the Earth with a relative velocity of about 70 kilometers per second (far and away the fastest of all showers). They tend to be very bright and fireballs leaving trails that last for minutes are relatively common (which is why the dedicated amateur will watch them on normal years). Last year several fireballs exceeded the brightness of a full moon.
Last year was one of those magical times and this year holds great promise - with a few caveats. Sadly we will have nearly a full moon. The best models for the storm are based on information from last year (Lyytinen and Asher if you want to do some serious hunting). Based on the projections it looks like there will be two separate storms.
The first will be best in Western Africa through Western Europe peaking around 04:00 UT. It turns out that the Maritime Provinces will be particularly well located for meteors that skim the atmosphere (which can be particularly beautiful).
The second storm should peak around 10:30UT and most of North America except for the Atlantic Seaboard should be good (people in the NE should try anyway as very bright meteors are visible even in the early dawn - we saw a spectacular fireball last year in the dawn),
What prompted all of this was a flyer from a place that tries to put together viewing parties near optimal spots. In this case they are trying to block the moon with a mountain range near Asheville, NC.
http://metaresearch.org/expeditions/coming/2002leonid/leonids-2002-expedition.asp
If you didn't see the display last year, you need to try this time around. It is likely that none of you will be alive for the next spectacular storm.
5:52:49 AM 
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