Perseids 2020
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If you intend to spend hours trying to get a view of last night’s highlight of 2020 Perseid meteor shower, your local sky conditions will play a decisive role in what you see. Will one “shooting star” be visible? Or will this year’s Perseids’ performance be obscured by a curtain of clouds?
In general, the western and southern parts of the United States will have the best viewing options, while the weather over the central and eastern states will be much more problematic. You can too watch the Perseid meteor shower live online, with at least four different webcasts to choose from.
The meteor shower will pick up a lot tonight from late Tuesday to early Wednesday (August 11-12), with webcasts running last Wednesday.
Related: Perseid meteor shower 2020: When, where & how to see it
Meteor shower weather
In northern New England, much of New York State and Pennsylvania, west of the lower Ohio Valley and parts of the Midwest and Central Plains states, will serve as a frontal line as the catalyst for cloud cover, as well. scattered showers and thunder. While the threat of precipitation is likely to decrease after sunset in most places, there may still be a few showers that sit for late night hours, along with scattered to broken (50-75% ) cloud cover, which only offers a “fair chance” of getting a view of the Perseids.
Possibly the region where clouds cover 75 to 100% of the sky and thus offer poor prospects for meteorologists, may be over the Central Area of Upstate New York, including the Leatherstocking region, so named for the unique leather leggings worn by fronts, and made famous by the work of author James Fenimore Cooper.
Across much of Florida, widespread shower and thunderstorm activity is expected through the noon and evening hours, in response to a lot of moisture and atmospheric instability and a series of weak disturbances that continue. Locally heavy rain and strong to severe storms are likely. Jawis later in the night most of the showers / storms would have to end, but clouds could pull, which obstructed the view for meteorologists.
Webcasts: How can you watch the Perseid meteor shower of 2020 peaks tonight!
And not every place outside the west will have problem-free weather.
Parts of northern Nevada and northern Utah will have to deal with a zone of convergence – the boundary in the middle levels of the atmosphere between two different air masses that could produce a very cloud cover and ‘dry’ thunderstorms (storms that did not produce much if no moisture). And all along the immediate Pacific coast from the state of Washington to southern California, a local marine layer could translate into low cloud cover. But just a short drive a bit to the land to the coast should provide especially clear skies.
If we did not mention your part of the country above, your local air forecast should rate well to excellent with no less than partly cloudy to clear skies (see our map). Some of the best states to see in Perseid tonight will be Arizona, New Mexico, Louisiana, Wisconsin, as well as most of the major states of Montana and Texas.
To get the latest updated forecast for your area, click here to access National Weather Service weather forecast offices in all 50 states, including Puerto Rico and Pacific Islands.
That stupid moon!
Another issue regarding this year’s Perseidouche is the month, which will be in the final quarter phase and will rise shortly after midnight to make unwanted brightness with its light; that will probably crush some of the brave meteor streams.
Normally, a single observer from a site that saw far from any bright lights or numerous obstructions such as buildings or trees would count 60 to 90 meteors per hour between midnight and the first light of morning. So how does the month play out in this year’s Perseid display?
We did a check of Perseid years when the moon was in a similar phase and its ambient light in the same modest way. Meteor rates generally in the order of about 30 per hour. So expect that after the moon makes its (unwelcome) appearance in the wee hours of the morning, that Perseids will appear at about one-half to one-third of their normal hour per hour – if you look from a dark viewing page.
Of course, you should expect much lower numbers if you are looking for a suburb rather than city location. We here at Space.com often wish when we saw an article or heard a radio or television news report that promised “up to 90 meteors per hour” for the peak of Perseid’s shower without mentioning moonlight disclaimers or bright city lights. Then we hear the next day people complaining that the Persians were a bust.
That they were not. It’s just a matter of making proper preparations and knowing what to expect from your viewing site. City lights and light pollution can seriously affect the number of meteors you can see in the air.
Video: NASA cameras capture early firebeams from the 2020 Perseid meteor shower
How can you watch and expect a fireball?
If you intend to make a night out of it, the best equipment you can bring, whether a reclining lawn chair like a sleeping bag or a blanket, is spread out on the ground. Do not concentrate on one part of the sky, but just keep looking around, and keep in mind that the lion’s share of meteors from the northeast will dart, where the constellation Perseus will be (hence the name “Perseids”).
Of course, as far as the Perseids are concerned, it is not so much the quantity as the quality of meteors. The Perseids have a reputation for sometimes producing exceptionally bright fireball meteors that are capable of rivaling Jupiter and Venus in brightness and leaving a gleaming vapor trail in the wave that lasts several seconds or more.
Sometimes a fireball will end its short flight by quietly exploding with a burst resembling the pop of a flashbulb or strobe. Such meteors are often just bad and far in between, but if you are lucky enough to see even just one of these, it will make your night under the stars more worthwhile.
Good luck and clear skies!
Editor’s note: If you’ve squeezing a great photo of the Meteor Shower of 2020 and want to share it for a story like a photo gallery, send pictures and comments to [email protected]!
Joe Rao serves as an instructor and guest lecturer at New York’s Hayden Planetarium. He writes about astronomy for Journal of Natural History, de Farmers’ Almanac and other publications. follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and to Facebook.
