The Perseids meteor shower will peak this week against a new moon sky, which is expected to allow sky gazers to see up to 100 meteors per hour where the viewing is clear. Unfortunately for Coloradans, the forecast is calling for clouds as monsoonal moisture increases the chances for storms mid-week.
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The Perseids shower will peak on Wednesday night into the morning hours before sunrise on Thursday. Locals living south of Denver have the best chance for seeing meteors streak across the sky at 3 a.m. Thursday when cloud coverage is expected to diminish to 30% to 40%, said Kenley Bonner, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Boulder.
Park County and southern Douglas County will likely have the clearest skies Thursday morning, Bonner said, though folks in Gilpin County, Clear Creek County, eastern Summit County, southern Jefferson County, Elbert County, southern Denver County may also have a chance to catch the meteor shower.
“North and east of there is far more cloudy,” Bonner said. “It’s definitely not going to be clear skies and we’re definitely not going to see the highest amounts they anticipate with that new moon.” She estimates about 20 to 30 meteors an hour may be visible.
The Perseids meteor shower occurs annually in the summer when Earth passes through a debris stream left behind by the 109P/Swift-Tuttle comet. As the tiny bits of comet dust hit the atmosphere at high speed, they burn up as bright streaks of light. The shower has been active since July 17 and is expected to run through Aug. 24, according to the American Meteor Society.
Though the local forecast is not optimal for meteor shower viewing, there’s another reason to look to the sky later this month. On the night of Aug. 27, the full moon will enter Earth’s shadow and much of North America will experience a partial lunar eclipse.
“At maximum eclipse, about 93% of the moon’s diameter will be inside Earth’s dark central shadow, called the umbra,” according to NASA. “The moon will not be completely covered, but it can look dramatically darkened, with a rusty, coppery tint along the covered edge.”
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