I used three different sources to list these meteor showers. Where asterisked, information is from Alan F. Cook's A Working List of Meteor Streams. The ≁ refers to Peter and Margaret Brown's recently completed radar study of meteor showers from 2001 to 2006. The other is Gary Kronk's Meteor Showers: A Descriptive Catalog. The three lists are far from identical and represent studies done with different equipment (visual, photographic, and radar), and they do produce some different statistics. Moreover, Brown's meteor velocities are “out of atmosphere” velocities, while Cook's are directly measured velocities taken once the meteor has entered the atmosphere.

There are a lot of showers represented in this list, but the list does not include every shower that has been suggested or observed. However, it does offer the showers that are most likely to produce meteors that an observer can see visually. It is my hope that the printed list with its information and comments, along with the graph (Figure 19.1), will be a useful planning aid when you decide to watch for meteors on any given night of the year.