Perseid Meteor Shower 2016 Peak: Will Tampa Bay’s Rain Stop in Time?

TAMPA BAY, FL — Stargazers looking for a spectacular free show need only look to the heavens this week. The Perseid meteor shower is set to peak Aug. 11-12, but rainy conditions in the Tampa Bay area could mute the performance. Those who do manage to catch a glimpse, however, are in for quite a double feature due to what NASA calls an “outburst effect.”

“Under perfect conditions, rates could soar to 200 meteors an hour,” Bill Cook, who leads NASA’s Meteoroid Environments Office in Huntsville, Alabama, said in a statement.

Every Perseid meteor is actually a tiny piece of debris from the comet Swift-Tuttle which disintegrate in flashes of light when they hit the Earth’s atmosphere. They’re called Perseids because they seem to originate from the constellation Perseus.

Usually, the Earth just grazes the edge of the Swift-Tuttle debris stream, but this year, Jupiter’s gravity — thank you, Jupiter! — will tug the debris stream closer and Earth will more or less plow through the middle of them.

A Perseid outburst last occurred in 2009.

Why Shower May Not Be All That

Before you pack up for an overnighter in some dark sky area, Forbes steps in to cheer you right down with a meteor-buzzkilling story about how the 2016 Perseid Meteor Shower is “awfully overhyped.”

“When everything aligns perfectly, a meteor shower can reach its maximum potential. However, not everything is perfectly aligned for this year’s Perseids,” wrote Ethan Siegel, a contributing writer for Forbes on astrophysics, space and the science of the universe.

“Despite being one of the most consistent meteor showers year in and year out, with anyone going out during the peak time for about 5-10 minutes all but guaranteed to see at least one meteor, it’s a far cry from the "spectacular show" being touted by many news outlets and science reporters,” he wrote

Siegel said the show should be better than average, but expects the increase in meteors to be “modest.” Moreover, that’s a good thing, because the number of meteors per hour depends on the Earth’s proximity to the Swift-Tuttle debris stream.

“It’s a good thing that most comets and asteroids themselves don’t cross Earth’s orbit; it would be a disaster for so many objects to collide inevitably with us,” he wrote.

What makes the Perseids such an anticipated meteor shower is the speed they move relative to Earth and how that affects the brightness of the shooting stars. They come from a comet that takes 133 years to orbit the Earth and move with nearly three times the energy of slow-moving debris streams like December’s Geminids, so the Perseids are brighter and more easily seen. This year is no different than any other year in that respect, Siegel wrote.

And then there’s the attention-grabbing moon.

A waxing moon — that is, one that is greater than half full — will provide light pollution until it sets after midnight. So, you’ll have to stay up ridiculously late — or get up ridiculously early — to see them.

In the Tampa area, moonset is at 1:10 a.m. and 1:51 a.m. EDT on Aug. 11 and Aug. 12, respectively, give or take a few minutes based on the town.

Tampa Bay’s current weather conditions just pile on the potential for bad news. According to the National Weather Service, the heavy rains that kicked off the workweek should clear out by Thursday and Friday’s peak viewing nights. Even so, there is a 30 percent chance for scattered thunderstorms in the evening hours Thursday and a 40 percent chance overnight Friday.

Also, Siegel wrote, the Swift-Tuttle comet is moving away from the Earth, and that’s a big deal with it comes to the Perseids.

“The debris stream is densest around a comet’s (or asteroid’s) nucleus, and Swift-Tuttle is presently moving away from Earth. It made its closest approach to the Sun back in 1992, and won’t be back until 2126. The Perseids are also less variable and more consistent than many other showers, but have been steadily decreasing (on average) in meteors-per-hour since the early 1990s, and will continue to do so over the coming years and decades.”

If you want a truly awesome meteor shower, you’ll have to wait almost two decades, according to Siegel.

“The Leonids ... tend to peak every 33 years on average, with the year 2034 providing a major enhancement if you look at the right time,” he wrote.

In the meantime, here’s a time-lapse from the 2015 Perseid meteor shower.

Image: John Fowler via Flickr / Creative Commons

By Patch editor Beth Dalby