Lyrid Meteor Shower 2013 Peak: Will the Weather Cooperate in Urbandale?

The Lyrid meteor shower made its 2013 debut Tuesday in the skies above Urbandale — and of all the year’s many shows in the heavens, this is one to catch.

The weather doesn't look to cooperate, though. The National Weather Service says there's a 90 percent chance of rain overnight tonight.

The skies have been largely empty of visible meteor showers since the Quadrantids of early January, but the shooting stars of the Lyrids have been a reliable spectacle for about 2,600 years.

The Lyrids meteor shower peaks in 2013 on April 21 and 22. You can see what to look for in this video of the Lyrid meteor shower. Or check out photos of the Lyrids. And these charts of the Lyrids may help you locate the shooting stars.

The Lyrids tend to be bright and often leave trails and tend to peak at about 10-20 meteors per hour. One of the unpredictable aspects of this shower, though, is that it’s known for uncommon surges that sometimes result in up to 100 shooting stars per hour.

Do you have a favorite spot to watch meteor showers in Urbandale? Let us know in the comments!

Back in 1803, a journalist in Virginia observed one of those surges and wrote that the outburst, “...alarmed many and astonished every person that beheld it. From 1 in the morning until 3 in the morning, those starry meteors seemed to fall from every point in the heavens, in such numbers to resemble a sower of sky rockets...”

A downside certainly exists this year: The moon will be bright until a couple of hours before dawn. Still, the greatest number of shooting stars tend to come after the moon departs anyway, so the show could still make getting up early worth it.