Tomorrow night (Thursday) and into early Friday morning will mark the peak of the annual Perseid Meteor shower.  With the crescent moon setting shortly after sunset, this year's meteor shower should be one of the best to view in recent times.  To maximize your viewing, you should move away from city lights that often causes light pollution.  Best viewing will be during the pre-dawn hours of Friday, August 13th where up to 100 meteors per hour can be seen!  For photography tips, my best advice is to have a fast lens (f/4.0 or faster), a high ISO setting, (1600 or higher) and taking long exposures.  It can prove difficult to capture a meteor if your focal length is too long, so generally between 10 - 30 mm is best.  It also helps to have a cable release for your camera too, to enable your camera for continuous shooting without having to press your shutter every time.

Above is a picture from Brian Emfinger, who has an amazing gallery of meteor shots here. His camera settings for the photo were set at 10 mm, f/4, ISO 3200 for 30 seconds.

There also is a slight risk of severe weather for portions of the Northern Plains and Upper Mississippi Valley on Thursday.  Briefly glancing at the models, this could be another potentially big day for SD/ND/MN/NE once again!  The only main concern is the upper level support which looks rather weak at 0z, and the potential for high LCLs and ongoing convection early in the day. However, the directional shear looks very supportive of supercells and I wish I could be up there tomorrow!

On Friday, A cold front will sweep across the Northern/Central Plains and into the Upper Mississippi Valley once again, which could bring another round of severe weather and heavy rainfall across that area.  Major flooding has taken place in Ames, Iowa, where the water has just crested a few inches below the record set in 1993 along Squaw Creek.  Other parts of Iowa are experiencing significant flooding as well.  Hopefully the affected areas see some relief on rainfall as flooding kills more people a year than tornadoes do.

Stay tuned for Live Streaming of tomorrow's severe weather event as the Northern Plains streamers will be out once again!