BOSTON (AP) – Stargazers in New England and New York could see an “outburst” of hundreds of meteors tonight during the annual Leonid meteor shower.

A typical Leonid shower brings 10 to 20 meteors an hour under ideal viewing conditions – a dark sky filled with stars and free of light pollution. But this year, the earth is passing through one of the comet’s dense trails of debris, causing the concentration of activity.

Meteors are caused by bits of space debris, in this case debris left by the Comet Tempel-Tuttle. Dust and debris from the comet burn up in the atmosphere and create the streaks of light.

The rush of meteors was expected between 11:45 p.m. tonight and 1:30 a.m. Sunday. Meteor forecasters predict 100 to 200 meteors an hour during the peak, said Alan MacRobert, the senior editor of Sky & Telescope magazine, based in Cambridge.

Skygazers in New England, eastern New York and eastern Canada have the best chance of catching the action in North America because they’ll most directly face the oncoming shower, MacRobert said.

“The place you really want to be is westernmost Europe or England,” MacRobert said. “They’ll be ideally placed.”

But other parts of the country may catch sight of the outburst if it arrives a few hours late, he said.

“Meteor weather prediction is even tougher and trickier than earth weather prediction, so we’ll see what happens,” MacRobert said.

The National Weather Service predicts partly cloudy skies in southern New England and mostly cloudy weather in northern New England and New York for Saturday and Sunday.

“It’s probably not going to be an ideal time to view any meteor showers,” meteorologist Charlie Foley said.

The Leonids are named for the constellation Leo, which marks the direction from which the meteors appear to arrive.

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