I did know earlier that the husband of my wife's sister had seen a strong meteor storm, but that he didn't rememeber the year. According to his age, he could have seen the 1946 Giacobinids, and that is what I was of course thinking. I had been too stupid, not to ask enough erlier. Now that we talked about the Leonids storms and came to this again, it came as a strong surprise to me that the storm had happened much later. He remembers the place, where he saw it (the home of his mother then).
The time window (the possibibilty to have observed in that location) for the storm is in the years 1960 to 1967.
He remembers that it was dark, so probably not snow in the fields. So most probably it was in the autumn and it must have happened in the evening, probably before 22 local time. There was probably not (much) moonlight.
They first saw flashes outside thinking it to be a thunderstorm. Going out to see, there were shooting stars, 'hundreds'. He was quite familiar with individual shooting stars, and immediately recognized what they were. According to his description the meteors left wakes.
They (with his mother, who is not living here on Earth any more) were looking about South-East, or actually to every direction but the North-East direction was blocked by the building. The radiant was probably quite high but may have been behind the building.
He remembers that the meteors 'came down and not horizontally as he has sometimes seen'.
He remembers a strong wind (maybe from South-East) with clouds drifting fast. But it was (practically) clear there. I am expecting that maybe the sky here in Finland was mostly cloudy, and they were lucky to have clear. He was a bit sorry that they didn't write anything down. After filling their 'curiosity', they left back inside, (althoug he well remembers the feeling of something very special). He can not tell, if the rates were increasing or declining. The observing period may have been as short as five minutes.
He has the impression that nothing was written in the daily newspapers on this, at least he didn't see.
The observation was made in Hyryla, not far from Helsinki.
Getting to know this, a week ago, I have been trying to find an explanation by means of modelling the Giacobinids, but not with success, at least not yet, and now think that such a strong storm would have already had an explanation, if it was Giacobinids.
Maybe the radiant was quite far North (as told probably in the Nort-East from the location). This would (to some degree) help to explain that it was not observed from more southern locations. The meteors may have had quite a big entry speed, because of the wakes that the meteors left.
In any case, I find the source very reliable and I am practically certain that such a storm really happened.
Might anybody have any observations (or thoughts) that could give some explanation or for example reject some years and/or showers (for example with Giacobinids)?
Esko