Cloud cover Saturday

This is the expected cloud cover situation for 2 a.m. to 4 a.m. Saturday May 24, 2014. The Great Lakes should be under a dry dome of air leading to clear skies for the meteor shower viewing.

(Mark Torregrossa)

A meteor shower is expected between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. this coming Saturday May 24, 2014. With a large area of dry air in place over the Great Lakes, Michigan may be the best place in the country to view Saturday's meteor shower.

The top graphic shows where I expect clouds to be located at 2 a.m. Saturday. Michigan should be right in the middle of a clear sky pattern. That is great news. We so often miss neat events in the sky due to our cloudiness.

But will the meteor shower be something to stay up late for? Bill Cooke, Lead for NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office says we all have to wait and see. This is the first time earth is going to travel through the debris left behind by comet 209P/Linear. As a result, we don't really know how showy the meteor shower will be. NASA's current thinking is anywhere from no meteor shower to up to 400 meteors per hour. If the meteor shower ends up with the 400 meteors per hour, it would be four times more active than the Leonids and Geminids meteor showers.

Cooke says that earth will actually be traveling through the debris shed from the comet 200 years ago, back in the 1800s. NASA doesn't know how much debris was being produced by the comet then. He also says right now the comet is a poor producer of debris. If the comet was the same way in the 1800s, our meteor show may be a dud.

The meteor shower is expected to occur between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. this Saturday May 24, 2014. So you will have to choose either to stay up late or get up real early to enjoy the show. Cooke says anywhere in North America will have a chance to see the meteor shower, but the farther north you are, the better the viewing. This is because the northern U.S., including Michigan, will have the meteors originating from higher in the sky.

The best way to view the possible meteor shower is to lie on your back and look straight up. You will also want to be in a location without any lights around.

Cooke says, that if the shower does occur, the number of meteors will gradually increase to a peak and then start to decrease. Once you see the number of meteors going down, the peak has been reached. NASA is good at forecasting the timing of this event, but not the intensity.

It has also recently been reported that this may be a meteor storm. Cooke now thinks that is unlikely. He defines a meteor storm as a meteor shower that exceeds 1000 meteors per hour.

Set your alarm clock or smart phone now to give you a reminder. With the expected weather pattern, I think things would have to change a lot for Michigan to have too many clouds to see the possible meteor shower.

MLive Meteorologist Mark Torregrossa has been forecasting Michigan weather for more than 20 years. He's been chief meteorologist at three television news stations in Michigan, and he's an avid gardener and hunter. Email him at mark@farmerweather.com and find him on Facebook at facebook.com/mark.torregrossa and Twitter @weathermanmark