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(meteorobs) Leonid Weather: Nationwide outlook for Friday Night
This will be my the eighth and final weather outlook for the Leonids. In
answer to many requests that I've received from observers this week, my final
outlook has been tailored for the contiguous US, as well as southern Canada.
I am also gratified by the number of visitors to my Leonid Meteor Website at
<A HREF="http://hometown.aol.com/theleonids/index.html">
http://hometown.aol.com/theleonids/index.html</A>
The site has been up since Sunday morning and in less than five days has
already received nearly 1700 hits . . . most of these in just the past few
days! It has been most interesting in attempting to anticipate where the
best viewing conditions for the shower would be over the past week. Tonight
is the night that according to several noted meteor experts (Asher, McNaught,
Lyytinen, Van Flandern) Earth will encounter dust trails expelled by Comet
Tempel-Tuttle in 1733 and 1866. For much of North America, it is the 1866
encounter (at 07:51 UTC/November 18) that will be most observable, although
it is also possible that some long-trailed "Earth-grazing" meteors from the
1733 encounter may be evident to those in the Northeast US (at 10:44 p.m.
EST/November 17). Just what these potential meteor outbursts will bring is
unknown. Predictions vary widely from just a couple of dozen per hour to
perhaps approaching storm rates of 1000/hr. Certainly it will be a night of
high anticipation!
VIEWING SYNOPSIS:
A large part of the eastern and central United States and a good slice of
the western United States should have at least partly cloudy-to-clear skies
at the time of the encounter with the 1866 dust trail (2:51 a.m. EST/11:51
p.m. PST). We would include the following areas:
1) Southern New England, "perhaps" as far north as southernmost sections of
Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.
2) Greater New York City area and New Jersey, including the Hudson Valley and
eastern Pennsylvania.
3) Middle Atlantic Coast
4) Much of the Piedmont and Southeast Coast, with the exception being the
southern-third of Georgia.
5) The southern-third of Florida (Lake Okeechobee on south)
6) Greater Ohio Valley, with the exception of northeast Ohio (where
lake-effect snow showers may fall).
7) Upper Tennessee River Valley, and also including roughly the northern half
of Alabama and Mississippi, as well as much of northern and central Georgia
and most of Arkansas.
8) Chicago and Southern Great Lakes, including Milwaukee, Detroit and the
Canadian city of Windsor.
9) Southern and eastern Iowa, much of Missouri and possibly the northeastern
portion of Kansas
10) Rocky Mountain Region that includes much of Idaho, Nevada, Utah, eastern
Washington and Oregon.
11) Arizona
12) The Pacific Northwest including much of Vancouver Island and extreme
southwestern portion of British Columbia.
13) California
Areas not included in the above listing are likely to have
broken-to-overcast skies (60 to 100% cloud coverage) and/or some form of
precipitation, hence making for unfavorable viewing conditions for tonight's
Leonid shower.
I hope that all these weather outlooks posted during this week have been
interesting and informative for those of you planning out your prospective
view of this year's "Y2K Leonids."
-- joe rao
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