For some reason I awoke at 5:05am tuesday morning.

I staggered out onto the (wet and cold) patio to see if the sky was clear at all. There was a large opening directly overhead so I looked up and waited for a few minutes. I saw a meteor down low in the east.

Inside I went, donned the usual winter astronomy clothes, grabbed the Meteor Shower Observing Chair (reclining lawn chair), toasted some pop tarts, and headed back outside, where I sat in the customary meteor observing position.

I was treated to some of the most dazzling meteors I had ever seen. These were very bright, brighter than jupiter. Even with the light polluted skies and cloud cover, these meteors were leaving trails that were visible for up to 5 seconds. The brighest occured just "in front" of the big dipper's bowl; probably a -2 and it left a big trail. Around 6am the sky was getting a bit bright, and I could still barely see stars. But I could still see the meteors.

The weird thing was that at about 5:30am it started drizzling. I could still see the sky through the broken clouds, and even saw a couple meteors during the drizzle.

I turned in around 6:15am. During the hour I saw 21 meteors. Most were in "pairs": one followed shortly by another. Almost all had trails. At a dark sky site these would probably have lit up the ground.