A case study of twilight probing of the atmosphere during Leonid meteor shower 2001

Twilight sounding method is used to retrieve the vertical distribution of the dust particles throughout the middle atmosphere. The photometry observations of the twilight sky brightness were carried out during the Great Leonid meteor storm of November 2001 at a tropical inland station Pune (18°32′N, 73°51′E), India. This experiment gave an opportunity to monitor height distribution of meteoric dust between 16 and 150 km. Normalization of the current set of data with a reference data set shows the evidence of influx of the fine meteor dust with a broad peak at around 80 km in the evening twilight of November 18, the day of meteor storm peak, and its subsequent descent to the lower stratosphere. The magnitude of enhancement of dust due to this meteor shower at the peak of distribution is about seven times the normal.