Leonids Peak TONIGHT!

Can you tell I'm excited??? I love meteor showers - I remember when I was in middle and high school, I used to stay up with my girlfriends during sleepovers just to watch the meteor showers. Call us nerds, my "nerd-dom" started early, but we thought it was one of the coolest things to check out. I grew up in rural Minnesota, so we were far enough from the city lights, so viewing these meteor showers was just amazing. We'd lay out the blankets, bring the snacks and pop out and lay with our heads in a circle in our sleeping bags to chat and watch the show. All of the showers we stayed up to watch weren't as brilliant as this one is supposed to be. Many are saying we could see up to 100 meteors per hour, though other astronomical forecasters are saying we'll only see 30-40 per hour, still a huge amount! If you know anyone over in Asia - that's where viewing will be the best - over 200 meteors per hour! So where does this meteor shower come from? As the Earth is turning and in it's orbit around the sun, we're passing through an area of debris from the Comet Tempel-Tuttle right now.

And did you know you can actually HEAR meteors??? SpaceWeather.com has set you up to actually LISTEN to meteors! It's called Meteor Radar: "The Leonid meteor shower is underway. You can listen to the shower even if you can't see it because of clouds or daylight. The Air Force Space Surveillance Radar is scanning the skies above Texas, and when a Leonid passes over the facility--ping!--there is an echo. Tune into Spaceweather Radio for a live audio feed."

Pretty neat stuff I think, hopefully you can catch it tonight - 1am is when things will really pick up, but bundle up - another chilly night tonight.

~KDLT Meteorologist Jesse Ritka