From: David Morrison, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2001 08:57:56 -0800 Janet and I watched the Leonids from a good dark site 40 miles south of here, where we fortuitously joined with Kevin Zahnle, Jeff Moore, and Aaron Zent. It did not qualify as a meteor storm, but it was by far the best shower that any of us had seen, and we all figured that it was properly classed as "the meteor shower of a lifetime" for us. In addition to the Leonids, we saw a surprising number of Taurids (apparently), at least a dozen per hour. We observed facing south-east from about midnight till 3:30 PST, and then saw two spectacular meteors over San Jose from the car on the way home, at 4:06 and 4:15, apparently consistent with Clark's report of brighter meteors after the peak (I guess we shoud have stayed out till dawn). I saw 20 more from our balcony at home (overlooking San Jose) between 4:30 and 4:40, but nothing really bright. The frequency rose with the rise of the radiant, reaching two apparent peaks at about 2:10 and 2:35 PST and thereafter declining slowly until the time we left. Together our group was observing at least 500 per hour between 2:00 and 3:00, and allowing for sky coverage we guessed a peak rate approaching 1000 per hour. The brightest were mostly about magnitude -3, distinctly brighter than Jupiter, but no real fireballs. One strong trail near the radiant could be seen for about 10 minutes, first twisting and then gradually spreading until it blended with the sky brightness. The most fun was looking for multiple meteors, The were many triples, and shortly after 3:00 one event with 5 simultaneous meteors (within a half second). We also had the subjective impression of correlation (see Clark's message below), especially in pairs of meteors, but I don't trust this given the well-documented human tendency to see order even in random events. My guess on public response was that there were about as many cars on the Henry Coe State Park road as meteors in the sky (well over 1000), but fortunately most of them left by 3:00 so our drive home was not too crowded. It was a great event, one we won't forget.