Geminids peak this week!

The big highlight this week will be the Gemind meteor shower. The peak night is Dec. 13/14. Unfortunately, a storm is on the map that will likely bring rain Friday night to a large portion of the East Coast. However, from personal experience this shower is rather active in the few days leading up to the peak, then it backs off significantly. Both Thursday night and Saturday night look much clearer on the East Coast. Of the two nights, I think Thursday night would have the most activity. 

Computer model prediction of cloud cover around Midnight Friday night.

There have been a few fireball reports recently. These are probably early Geminid meteors.

One of these fireballs went right over AccuWeather.com HQ this past weekend! Here is the view from a webcam at Meteorologist Jesse Ferrell's house.

A lot of meteor showers get hyped up, some don’t deserve the hype, but this one does. There will be a nearly full moon on the peak night, but there will be plenty of meteors that will be bright enough to see. 

Speaking of the full moon, it rises Wednesday night!

The December full moon is mainly known as the Winter Moon, but has been called the Cold Moon as well. 

During the evening that the full moon rises, look toward the other horizon. Venus and Saturn will be side by side just after sunset. They will both set by 7 p.m., so you have to look early to see them! (the conjunction is technically at 1:03 a.m. EST early Wednesday, so they will be slightly closer together during the evening of Dec. 10). 

Here is an interesting tidbit! According to Spaceweather.com 2019 is about to set a Space Age record. So far this year, the sun has been blank (no sunspots) for 263 days, including the last 26 days in a row. If the streak continues for 6 more days, 2019 will break the Space Age record for most days without sun spots. This really shows how deep of a solar minimum we are going through.

Stay tuned in for updates regarding the sky cover for the peak night of the Geminid meteor shower. I plan on adding international forecasts for the peak night as this shower is visible across the globe! Thanks for reading. Just look up, you never know what you will see!