(meteorobs) Maslov's Leonid predictions for the 21st century

[Daniel Fischer]

In the current WGN (Vol. 35#1 [Feb. 2007] 5-12) Mikhail Maslov presents detailled predictions
for the Leonids for the years 2007 to 2100 and 'post-dictions' for the years 2001 to 2006, but
he doesn't provide a detailled comparision of the latter with what was actually observed. Here goes:

Year	Date	Time seen	max. ZHR seen 	Time predicted	max. ZHR pred.	the ZHR pred. was

2001	Nov. 18	10:40 UTC	2000		10:25 UTC	550 to 600	factor 4 too low
		18:20 UTC	3500		17:33 - 18:18	4400 to 5200	50& too large
2002	Nov. 19	 4:10 UTC	2350		 4:09 UTC	1300		factor 2 too low
		10:50 UTC	2660		10:44 UTC	4300		factor 2 too large
2003	Nov. 13	12 to 24 UTC	30		14 to 15 UTC	20 to 30	correct
	Nov. 14 all day		20 to 40	14 UTC		50		probably correct
	Nov. 19	0 to 22 UTC	30 to 60	18:44 UTC	15 to 20	factor 2-3 too low
2004	Nov. 17-19 plateau	35		Nov. 19 20:37	25 to 30	correct
2006	Nov. 19	 4:46 UTC	75		4:55 UTC	35-40		factor 2 too low

Thus Maslov's model predicts the peak times of the various dust trails very well and the activity
of minor trails to within a factor of 2. His predictions for the strength of the major trails and
thus Leonid storms, however, are off by factors of 2 to 4, variously over- or underestimating
the peak ZHR rate. (For 2005 no IMO data are available; the model postdicts 15 to 20 on Nov. 21)

For the remainder of the 21st century, Maslov's model predicts one storm with a max. ZHR of up to
1400 for 2094, six major outbursts with max. ZHR in the 300 to 500 range for 2033, 2034, 2035,
2037 and 2061, and two minor outbursts with max. ZHR of 130 to 150 for 2008(!) and 2098. Since
none of the test cases covers the 100 to 500 ZHR range, we have no indication how accurate those
figures may be. Nature will tell - anyone else predicting a significant shower in 2008?

Daniel Fischer, Leonids veteran (see http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/stories/5wildyrs ...)