Grab the kids, close up the house, and head away from city lights this weekend for great viewing of the best meteor shower of the year: the Perseids.

And our weather's going to be fantastic to see it.

According to the International Meteor Organization, the rate of Perseids meteors visible in the darkened sky was already at 42 per hour and increasing in the early hours of Friday morning.

This signals that the show on Saturday and Sunday morning is likely to be spectacular, with meteors streaking across our sky at a rate of one per minute and possibly even greater!

When and where to look

The best viewing period across the Pacific Northwest will begin at midnight both Saturday and Sunday mornings (Sunday morning could be slightly better) and last through dawn as the radiant (or point in the sky from which the meteors appear to radiate) rises higher in our northeastern sky.  

However, some meteors could be seen as early as 10 p.m.

(These times don't just apply to the Northwest, but are the same at local time for the entire northern hemisphere.)

You don't need to be looking at the radiant point, however.  The viewing location most recommended by meteor watchers is in a location not impacted by the light pollution of the city (think: rural).

Take lawn or pool chairs and arrange them where your feet will be pointing northeast.  Recline back a bit so that much of the sky is visible from the northeast horizon at your feet to past directly overhead.   The "sweet spot" will be halfway up in the sky.

After you get into darkness, it will take your eyes several minutes to adjust.

Some streaks will be faint.  Others could be spectacularly vibrant with a visible "vapor trail" that lasts a few seconds before fading.

If you have a camera with a timed shutter option: orient the camera to have the same view halfway up in the northeast sky, set the shutter to maximum exposure time and click away.  You might capture an incredible image!

What about the moon?

The moon will be rising (as noted in Seattle) at 12:25 a.m. Saturday morning and will be 33 percent illuminated.

On Sunday morning, the moon rises at 1:11 a.m. and will be 24 percent illuminated.

The glow from the moon will not ruin the show, but clearly the least moonlight is best, so that would favor Sunday morning.  

(Projections are that Sunday morning will hold the potential for a few more meteors per hour anyway.)

Jupiter and Venus get in on the fun

Jupiter and Venus will also be visible near the crescent moon, creating a rare combination of celestial bodies near one another during the Perseids shower.

NASA has prepared a YouTube video with more information on this occurrence.  

The big question: will the weather hold?

Living west of the Cascades can often mean looking up and seeing nothing while the rest of the world talks about an incredible eclipse or an awesome meteor shower.  

But this weekend, we're going to have weather that will be perfect for viewing.  

And, living where we do, it'll be pleasantly cool at night and we won't be eaten alive by the bugs that plague much of the rest of the country in summer.

Our nights looks clear, with the possibility of some ground fog developing closer to dawn in some fog-prone spots in the interior.  

For the mountains and foothills, viewing conditions look impeccable.

At the coast and along the Strait, we could see more overnight low clouds.  So, if you're in these areas, you might hope for the best, but prepare for a drive to higher elevations nearer the Olympics to get away from low clouds.  

The Perseids are made of dust from Comet Swift-Tuttle

While we call the Perseids a "meteor shower," and technically it's true, most of us think of a meteor as a large hunk of rock floating in space.

The truth is, most of the streaks we'll see from the Perseids originate from dust particles the size of grains of sand.  

These tiny particles hit the earth's atmosphere at such tremendous speeds they explode into brilliant streaks of light.  

Comet Swift-Tuttle completes an orbit once every 130 years and leaves dust behind on every orbit.  Much of the dust the earth will pass through the next few nights is estimated to be around 1000 years old, but some is from more recent orbits.

The Perseids have been observed for at least two millenia and the name refers to the constellation Perseus, in which the radiant (center-point) of the shower is located in our night sky.

(Information source credit: Earthsky.org & spacedex.com)