The Leonid meteor shower begins the middle of November and is best viewed under clear dark skies. It radiates from the constellation Leo the Lion, which is found in the eastern heavens after midnight in the Northern Hemisphere.

This shower has produced some of the greatest meteor storms in history. The 1966 Leonid shower produced thousands of meteors per minute during a span of 15 minutes on the morning of November 17, 1966.

This week-long meteor shower usually produces around 5-20 meteors each hour, except once in about every 33 years when thousands can be seen.

The Leonid meteor shower of 1833, depicted over Niagara Falls in artwork by Detlev Van Ravenswaay on November 13, produced an estimated 240,000 meteors during the nine hours over North America east of the Rocky Mountains. The New York Evening Post carried a series of articles on the event including reports from Canada to Jamaica. Joseph Smith, founder of Mormonism, noted in his journal that this event was a literal fulfillment of the word of God and a sure sign that the coming of Christ was close at hand.