I forgot to mention that between midnight and sunrise is the best viewing time. This time is when the side of earth is on the side in the direction that Earth is travelling so more chances to have impacts with meteorites.
I don't know how fast these sandgrain-sized specks of comet debris are travelling, but the Earth, is moving round the Sun at something like 66,000 miles per hour. That's 18 miles per second! So if they hit our atmosphere head-on, as opposed to us/earth overtaking them, that's a tremendous amount of energy. No wonder such a tiny speck of dust can light up the sky as they do.