ACCUWEATHER
This weekend is your chance to see beautiful green meteors shoot across the night sky!
NEW ORLEANS — The Leonid meteor shower will reach its peak Saturday night into early Monday morning, and the New Orleans area is expected to have great conditions to watch it. This meteor shower is known for its periodic storms, producing thousands of meteors an hour, although this year’s meteor count is predicted to be much lower.
Starting just after midnight Sunday into the early hours of Monday Nov. 18, the Leonid Meteor Shower will reach it’s peak. Small streaks will shoot across the sky as the earth passes through the orbital path of the Tempel-Tuttle comet. This year’s shower will produce 10 to 15 meteors per hour, and even though it peaks early Monday, we’ll still see meteors from the Leonids through the end of the month.Those meteor shower “storms” only come around every 30 years or so. So, the next time the Leonids produce a thousand, or more, meteors per hour, will be around the year 2030. According to AccuWeather, Southeast Louisiana will have “Good” viewing conditions, the highest rating for watching the storm.
AccuWeather
The debris that cause these shooting stars is very different from what produced this week’s fireball in St. Louis. Instead of being 3 feet in size … these meteors are roughly the size of a cheerio.Because the metals are rich in iron and magnesium, the Leonids often leave bright green tails in their wake, Business Insider reports. RELATED: Videos appear to show meteor streaking through the sky over St. Louis area► Get breaking news from your neighborhood delivered directly to you by downloading the new FREE WWL-TV News app now in the IOS App Store or Google Play.
