Geminid meteor shower tonight!

The meteor shown is an early Geminid captured by Tyler Schlitt last night in Missouri.

The annual Geminid meteor shower is predicted to peak midday Thursday, but tonight and Thursday night will provide plenty of meteors to enjoy.  The Geminid shower is one of the most-reliably spectacular showers of the year, with plentiful slow-moving fireballs.  Under prime conditions, up to 120 per hour are possible.  Incidentally, this is a new meteor shower, first seen in the mid 1800s, and has been becoming more spectacular every year.

The simple answer is “upwards”.   The point where these meteors appear to radiate from is the Gemini constellation, which will rise in the east early this evening and be high in the sky by midnight.  Looking toward the radiant will provide the highest number of meteors, but some of the most-spectacular meteors will be seen farther from the radiant point.  These meteors take a longer trajectory through the atmosphere and are known as ‘earth grazers.   You can see this effect in this time-lapse image taken from 2018 in the Czeck Republic by Petr Horálek.

While the statistically best time to view meteors is in the midnight-dawn period as the point the meteors appear to radiate from (Gemini constellation) will be higher in the sky and thus more meteors will be visible (plus we will be closer timewise to the predicted peak rate), the evening fireballs take a longer trajectory through the atmosphere and appear slower and longer – these are known as ‘earth-grazers’.   So if you are not a morning person, it will be worth venturing outside this evening to catch some earth-grazers.

A cold front crossed this morning which will induce some lake-effect clouds to contend with tonight.  However, most of the area will have decent viewing conditions with large patches of clear skies and no moonlight.  Please enjoy today’s visible satellite loop where you can see the encroaching lake-effect clouds as well as the residual snow cover from Sunday night’s event.

The next storm system to affect our area will strengthen over the Gulf Coast Friday-Saturday and crawl up the eastern seaboard Sunday into early next week, spreading a cold rain into our area Sunday-Monday, possibly lingering into Tuesday.  There could be some mixed precipitation in our area on the back side of the low early next week, but without much cold air for the system to tap into, I suspect this will be a disappointingly cold rain for most.