A few of us defied the 1Q moon and went to Henry Coe on Saturday. It was a nice, small crowd; big enough not to be lonely, small enough to be friendly. The thing that we all noticed is that there seemed to be an unusual number of bright meteors. There were Perseids in the sort of numbers expected from the peak of the shower (that's my impression; I didn't do any counting), and there were a bunch of others going in the other direction. I didn't figure a radiant for them, but they seemed to be more numerous than expected from sporadics. Was there another shower on at the same time?
Among the Perseids were a number of very bright meteors that left trails. At one point, I was poring over charts in the trunk of my car (the hatchback design of the Acura makes for a convenient equipment shelf), and there was a bright, blue-white flash as if someone had shone a flashlight in my direction. This was closely followed by exclamations from the other observers. I looked up and saw a bright trail stretching over >10deg of sky and lasting a few seconds.
Later that night, I was facing N and another flash, not as bright but still impressive, illuminated the ground. I looked up to see a trail with a thick spot at one end, which was presumably where the bolide blew up.
Two ground-illuminating fireballs in one night? Not your normal Perseids!