Meteor storms are spectacular events which occur rarely—only a few were observed in the twentieth century. The problem of reliably predicting them has occupied solar system scientists since the unexpected and astonishing Leonid meteor display of 1833. Advances in understanding the phenomenon, with determinations of exactly when and from which parts of the world displays would be visible, allowed a number of storms to be widely observed recently in the years following the latest return of the Leonids' parent comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle.