The Perseid meteor shower peaks overnight. Here's how to see the show in Alaska

The annual Perseid meteor shower peaks overnight Thursday in a display astronomers say will likely be more stunning than usual, and Alaskans who want to see the show may have a chance – if the skies are clear.

"The Perseids promise to be really good this year.  Unfortunately the sky doesn't get completely dark for us at this time of year, but it will still get dark enough to see most of the meteors," Travis Rector, University of Alaska Anchorage astronomy professor, wrote in an email.

Meteor showers are brightest after midnight, and the best time to see the Perseids is between 1 and 3:30 a.m., when the sky is darkest, according to Rector.

"Most of the meteors will appear to be coming from the direction of the constellation Perseus (hence the name)," Rector wrote.

In Anchorage, sky gazers should look east, above the Chugach Range, around 1 a.m., he wrote.

"Note that the meteors will be visible over the entire sky, but will appear to be mostly coming from that direction," he wrote.

Weather may spoil the show for some Alaskans, however. In Southcentral, rain is forecast throughout the region.

Meteors showers are caused by small pieces of debris that hit the Earth's atmosphere, creating a white-hot tail of air, Sky and Telescope writes.

"The bits in the Perseid stream were shed long ago by Comet Swift-Tuttle … They're now distributed all along the comet's large, cigar-shaped orbit around the Sun. Earth passes through this tenuous 'river of rubble' every year in mid-August," Sky and Telescope writes.

This year's meteor show is supposed to be more spectacular than usual. Jupiter sometimes passes through the comet's orbit and its gravity pushes the particles closer to Earth, making for a thicker concentration of debris.

"Forecasters are predicting a Perseid outburst this year with double normal rates on the night of Aug. 11-12," Bill Cooke with NASA's Meteoroid Environments Office in Alabama said. "Under perfect conditions, rates could soar to 200 meteors per hour."

The last meteor outburst was in 2009, according to NASA.

"If the sky is clear tonight I will definitely be looking for them!" Rector said.