Ursid Meteor Shower 2026: Peak Night Dec. 21-22, Moonset Times for 10 U.S. Cities

The 2026 Ursid meteor shower peaks the night of Monday, Dec. 21 to Tuesday, Dec. 22, according to the American Meteor Society (AMS). The AMS puts the Moon at 89% lit that night and expects “significant lunar interference.” This story adds the Moon’s setting time for 10 U.S. cities from the U.S. Naval Observatory (USNO), and works out how long the sky stays Moon-free before sunrise.

Ursid peak and active dates for 2026

The AMS lists the Ursids as “Active through December 17–26, 2026,” with the peak night on Dec. 21-22. The peak night starts on the December solstice, which the USNO puts at Dec. 21, 2026, 20:50 Universal Time (UT), or 3:50 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST). The solstice is the longest night of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. Our winter solstice 2026 story has sunset times.

What	Date	Source
Ursids active	Dec. 17-26, 2026	AMS
Peak night	Dec. 21-22, 2026	AMS
Moon on the peak night	89% illuminated, waxing gibbous	AMS

The AMS says observers normally see 5-10 Ursids per hour during the late-morning hours. The AMS page also notes that the radiant, the point the meteors appear to come from, “fails to clear the horizon” from the southern tropics. It lists no other rate for 2026, so this story gives none.

How many minutes of Moon-free sky before sunrise?

The Moon decides how dark the sky is, and on this peak night it is almost full. The AMS gives 89% illuminated. The USNO lists 97% lit on Dec. 22 for most of the cities below and 98% for Los Angeles and Seattle (92% and 93% on the Dec. 21 query). The AMS and USNO figures are for different moments, so we cite each by source and do not merge them.

We pulled each city’s times from the USNO rise and set data service for Dec. 21 and Dec. 22, 2026, using the city’s center coordinates and local standard time. The last column is Fresh Calendars’ arithmetic: the minutes from moonset to sunrise.

City	Sunset, Mon., Dec. 21	Moonset, Tue., Dec. 22	Sunrise, Tue., Dec. 22	Minutes from moonset to sunrise
New York	4:32 p.m.	5:53 a.m.	7:17 a.m.	84
Boston	4:15 p.m.	5:47 a.m.	7:11 a.m.	84
Washington, D.C.	4:50 p.m.	5:58 a.m.	7:24 a.m.	86
Atlanta	5:33 p.m.	6:11 a.m.	7:39 a.m.	88
Chicago	4:23 p.m.	5:55 a.m.	7:15 a.m.	80
Dallas	5:25 p.m.	6:01 a.m.	7:26 a.m.	85
Denver	4:39 p.m.	5:59 a.m.	7:18 a.m.	79
Phoenix	5:25 p.m.	6:07 a.m.	7:29 a.m.	82
Los Angeles	4:48 p.m.	5:35 a.m.	6:55 a.m.	80
Seattle	4:20 p.m.	6:49 a.m.	7:55 a.m.	66

In all 10 cities the Moon sets between 66 and 88 minutes before sunrise on Dec. 22. That is the longest the Moon-free window can be, because it ends no later than sunrise. Times for other places differ; the USNO’s rise and set service takes any U.S. location.

Dates to mark around the Ursid peak

The USNO lists its phase times in UT. The EST conversions below are Fresh Calendars’ arithmetic, five hours behind UT.

Date	What happens	Source
Tue., Dec. 8	New Moon at 7:52 p.m. EST (00:52 UT on Dec. 9)	USNO
Thu., Dec. 17	First Quarter Moon at 12:42 a.m. EST (05:42 UT); Ursids become active	USNO, AMS
Mon., Dec. 21	December solstice at 3:50 p.m. EST (20:50 UT)	USNO
Mon., Dec. 21 to Tue., Dec. 22	Ursid peak night	AMS
Wed., Dec. 23	Full Moon at 8:28 p.m. EST (01:28 UT on Dec. 24)	USNO
Sat., Dec. 26	Last day of the active period	AMS

Mark them on the December 2026 printable calendar or the printable yearly calendar. For the December shower that comes first, see our Geminid meteor shower 2026 story, and for next year’s showers the 2027 meteor shower calendar.

Ursid viewing sheet to print

The printable lists the 10 cities with moonset, sunrise and Moon illumination from the USNO data, plus a Moon disc, a compass, a tally grid for counting meteors in 15-minute blocks and a checklist. The AMS has not published a peak hour for the Ursids, so the sheet gives the night, not a time.