News - Blogs - Showers tonight. No not that kind

Showers tonight. No, not that kind
Published: 11/17/2011 8:00 AM
Last Modified: 11/16/2011 4:30 PM

A meteor from the Leonid meteor shower streaks across the eastern sky above the windmills and landscape off of Old Altamont Pass, early Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2002, in Livermore, Calif. (AP Photo/San Francisco Examiner, Dino Vournas)

If you can stand a little bit of cold, tonight would be a really good night to do so.

The Leonid meteor shower—one of the most reliable of the year—is set to peak around midnight.

This shower occurs when the Earth passes through the trail of the 55P/Tempel-Tuttle comet. It’s almost a direct hit on Earth, with the meteors hitting our atmosphere nearly head-on at about 44 miles per second, creating blue and green fireballs and long dust trails.

I absolutely love meteor showers. There are few things more calming yet more exciting than lying on a blanket outside and waiting and watching for the bright streaks to light up the sky.

Now that I have you excited and planning your trip out to the darkness of rural Osage County for the best viewing, let me ruin your plans (Hey, this is the Tulsa World weather blog. Have you never read it before? We are all about bad news here).

The shower turns into a spectacular storm every 33 years or so. The last one was in 1999, when there were more than a thousand in an hour. This year’s peak can expect about 10 to 20 an hour.

The moon will be starting its last quarter tonight, so it will be brighter than is ideal for shower watching.

The shower will also originate about 14 degrees from that bright moon, making them even more difficult to find. The shower’s radiant point is in the sickle asterism in Leo (hence the name, Leonids…)

This is the sky about midnight. Notice where the constellation Leo is in relation to the Moon and Mars. That is the location from where the meteors will radiate.

The good news for us is that the weather will actually cooperate quite nicely, aside from the cold. The National Weather Service is calling for mostly clear skies Thursday night with a low around 35.

I would still recommend doing what you can to see at least one. Get away from city lights and other light pollution, face either north or south (you’ll see the streaks across the sky from the radiant point. Plus, looking at the moon will ruin your night vision), pack the Thermos with hot chocolate or whatever, sit back and wait.

Even if you see only one, it will be thrilling.

--Jerry Wofford

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Almanac

Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun
Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec

	Temperature		Precipitation
Date	High Temp	Low Temp	Total	Month to date	Historical average
1	44°	16°	0	0.00	0.05
2	59°	24°	0	0.00	0.11
3	57°	33°	0	0.00	0.16
4	68°	37°	Trace	0.00	0.21
5	69°	29°	0	0.00	0.26
6	66°	33°	0	0.00	0.32
7	59°	38°	0.05	0.05	0.38
8	51°	34°	0	0.05	0.44
9	44°	36°	0.01	0.06	0.51
10	62°	37°	0.07	0.13	0.57
11	54°	28°	0	0.13	0.64
12	44°	30°	0.25	0.38	0.70
13	55°	40°	0.01	0.39	0.76
14	°	°			0.83
15	°	°			0.89
16	°	°			0.95
17	°	°			1.02
18	°	°			1.09
19	°	°			1.16
20	°	°			1.23
21	°	°			1.31
22	°	°			1.38
23	°	°			1.46
24	°	°			1.53
25	°	°			1.61
26	°	°			1.69
27	°	°			1.77
28	°	°			1.85

TEMPERATURE

RAINFALL

SNOWFALL

Weather World

Follow Jerry Wofford on Twitter for updates during severe weather conditions.

Tulsa weather milestones of 2013 (as of Feb. 12)

Highest temperature: 70 on Jan. 11 (Record: 115 on Aug. 15, 1936)
Lowest temperature: 15 on Jan. 16 (Record: Minus-16 on Jan. 22, 1930)
Hottest month (average): 40.5 degrees in January (Record: 91.7 degrees on July 1980)
Coldest month (average): 40. 5 degrees in January (Record: 21.7 in January 1918)
Most snowfall (day): 0.1 of an inch on Feb. 12(Record: 13.2 inches on Feb. 1, 2011)
Most snowfall (month): 0.1 of an inch in February(Record: 22.5 inches in February 2011)
Most rainfall (day): 0.91 of an inch on Jan. 29 (Record: 9.27 inches on May 26-27, 1984)
Most rainfall (month): 1.54 of an inch in January (Record: 18.18 inches on September 1971)
Highest wind speed: 30 mph on Jan. 30
Previous day with any rain: Feb. 12
Previous day with 1 inch or more of rain: Oct. 17, 2012
Previous day with any snow: Feb. 12
Previous day with freezing temperatures: Feb. 12
Read regular updates on Oklahoma's unpredictable weather and learn more about meteorology from the Tulsa office of the National Weather Service.

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Contributors
Staff Writer Althea Peterson started writing for the Tulsa World in March 2007 after previous stops at the Norman Transcript in 2006 and the Oklahoma Gazette in 2005. She followed her older brother from rural Wisconsin (with a public school that never seemed to call snow days) to the University of Oklahoma, but did not follow his pursuit to study meteorology. However, she tries to find as many opportunities to report on the weather as possible.

Staff Writer Jerry Wofford came to the Tulsa World in 2010 from The Manhattan Mercury in Manhattan, Kan. Originally from western Arkansas and a graduate of the University of Oklahoma, Jerry has lived in Tornado Alley his entire life and is one of those people who goes outside when the sirens go off.

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