Taurid Meteor Shower Tonight: Peak Time and Where to Look

Last updated: Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2026, 9:10 a.m. ET.

If you see a slow, bright streak overhead tonight, it's probably a Taurid. The Northern Taurid meteor shower peaks tonight, Nov. 11-12, 2026, and the sky is cooperating better than usual. The moon is a sliver, just 4% lit on peak night, per the American Meteor Society, which means the only thing standing between you and a good show is the weather and your local streetlights.

Set expectations first. This is not the Perseids. You'll see a handful of meteors an hour at best. What makes the Taurids worth a cold half-hour on the lawn is that a larger-than-usual share of them are fireballs.

What time is the Taurid meteor shower tonight?

The best time to watch the Taurid meteor shower tonight is around midnight local time, overnight Wednesday into Thursday. That's when the shower's radiant, the spot in the constellation Taurus that the meteors seem to fly out of, sits high in the southeastern sky, Space.com reports.

Because the peak is defined by local sky position, the timing works the same in every U.S. time zone. Midnight in New York and midnight in Los Angeles are both good. Taurus rises in the east in the evening, so you can start looking after dark and keep going until the sky brightens before dawn.

The shower is broad, too. Northern Taurids are active from Oct. 20 through Dec. 10, so if tonight is cloudy, Thursday and Friday nights will still produce a few.

How many meteors you'll actually see

Under truly dark skies, expect about five meteors an hour at the peak. The American Meteor Society lists the Northern Taurids' rate at that level, and NASA's forecast is similar. From a suburban backyard, cut that number down.

Here's the catch that makes the number misleading. The Taurids are made of larger debris than many showers, so they throw off more fireballs, meteors that can flare brighter than Venus. Bill Cooke, NASA's meteoroid office lead, told Newsweek that people shouldn't be surprised to see a bright meteor or fireball over the next few nights.

Where to look for the Taurids

Face southeast and look up. Then shift your gaze a little away from Taurus.

That sounds backward, but it works. Meteors close to the radiant are coming almost straight at you, so their trails look short. A patch of sky a good distance off to the side shows longer streaks. If you can find the Pleiades, the small, tight star cluster in Taurus, you've found the general neighborhood.

Some practical tips for watching the Taurid meteor shower:

• Get away from lights. A park, a rural road or even the dark side of a house beats a front porch under a streetlight.
• Give your eyes 20 to 30 minutes. Night vision takes time to build, and one glance at a phone screen resets it. Turn the brightness all the way down or use a red-light mode.
• Skip the telescope. Binoculars and telescopes shrink your view to a tiny circle. Meteors need a wide-open sky.
• Dress for it. Mid-November nights are cold across much of the country. A reclining lawn chair and a blanket make an hour far more pleasant.

Weather is the wild card. Check your local forecast for cloud cover this evening; a clear, moonless sky is the whole game with a shower this sparse.

Why the Taurids produce fireballs

Both Taurid showers come from Comet Encke, a roughly 3-mile-wide ball of ice and rock that circles the sun every 3.3 years. As Earth passes through the trail of debris it leaves behind, those bits hit the upper atmosphere at about 65,000 mph, or roughly 18 miles per second, and burn up.

That's slow by meteor standards. It's part of why Taurid fireballs can look so lazy, gliding across the sky instead of flashing past. The brightest ones come from pebble-size pieces, which is bigger than the grains behind a typical shooting star.

Northern vs. Southern Taurids

There are actually two Taurid showers. The Southern Taurids run from Sept. 20 to Nov. 20, and in 2026 they had two peaks, on Oct. 14 and overnight Nov. 4-5. The Northern Taurids come a little later. When both branches overlap in late October and early November, the AMS says fireball activity sometimes picks up, which is why you'll hear people talk about "Halloween fireballs."

Tonight belongs to the northern branch. If you see a slow meteor that traces back toward Taurus, odds are good it's from Encke's trail.

Meteor showers coming up in November and December

Miss tonight and you don't have to wait long. The Leonids are already active and peak the night of Nov. 16-17, according to the AMS calendar. They're famous for historic meteor storms in 1833, 1966 and 2001, but no storm is expected this year, just a modest shower.

The big one is the Geminids, peaking Dec. 13-14. They're usually the strongest shower of the year and one of the few that put on a decent show before midnight, which makes them friendlier for families with kids.

If tonight sparks a bigger space habit, NASA's astronaut application requirements are worth a read. And since the clocks fell back on Nov. 1, darkness now arrives early enough that you can catch a few Taurids in the evening and still get to bed at a reasonable hour.

If the clouds clear tonight, give it at least 30 minutes outside. With a shower like this, the one fireball you'll remember can show up five minutes after you were about to go in.