Big meteor 'storm' fizzles into a drizzle

Depending on where they were watching, Utahns found Tuesday morning's Leonid meteor shower to be a dud, about average or fantastic.

Around this time every year, the Leonids deliver dozens, sometimes hundreds, of meteors an hour. This year was predicted to be the last great meteor storm before entering a 30-year period of ho-hum displays.

For a handful who watched from Delicate Arch in Arches National Park, this was the first of 31 years of less-than-brilliant displays.

At least from Arches, the 2002 version wasn't worthy of the term meteor storm. It wasn't even up to the standard meteor shower the Leonids usually deliver around this date every year. Instead, call it a meteor drizzle.

A Deseret News editor and reporter hiked in bright moonlight to the Delicate Arch formation, arriving at the arch 2 1/2 hours before the expected 3:35 a.m. peak of the meteor storm.

The view was stupendous. To the north, the Big Dipper stood upright on its handle. Above, a brilliant, mottled cloud cover sild across the moon, layers upon layers lit by Earth's satellite.

As the moon sank closer to the western horizon and the clouds cleared, its direct rays bathed Delicate Arch. Shapes and striations in the sandstone stood out with an icy beauty. The arch's shadow was ink black on the huge bowl it dominates.

Beyond and through the arch, the snow-capped La Sal Mountains glowed with an eerie whiteness.

A Japanese photographer, who had toted 12 cameras up the rugged trail to Delicate Arch, roamed around the sandstone bowl below it making exposures. He said he had to make five hikes — each round trip about four miles — to get all his cameras in place for the expected meteor storm.

On the ridge west of the arch, other photographers waited to make time exposures, including a camper from Boulder, Colo.

But the storm didn't materialize. Meteors appeared at fitful intervals over the hours as watchers' toes and noses grew numb in the cold. The meteors that did show flashed across the sky with amazing rapidity. Some were bright red and at least one left a long trail.

But they were rare.

Then, at what was supposed to be the peak of the display, half a dozen meteors lit the sky in a 10-minute period. No more than two or three seemed to pass near the arch.

But what a glorious view it was, Delicate Arch in the light of a full moon.