For the most part, meteor showers are predictable, and occur at the same time each year. This comet has just started to break up nicely, and its debris is especially rich every thirty-three years, just after each cometary pass through our solar system. Ancient people also noted these showers, and meteoric iron was often used to make ceremonial and serviceable weapons and tools. The dagger that rested on King Tut's chest is made from meteoric iron. If the piece is large enough to survive its passage through our atmosphere, it will fall to the earth as a meteorite.
Meteors are atmospheric.
Meteorites actually land upon the Earth. Meteoroids are simply bits of debris in space, too small to be called an asteroid. Asteroids are bodies large enough to be detectable by telescope. Meteors can be rocky, metallic, or a combination of both. The composition of meteor samples taken as a whole suggests the possibility that a small planetary body or bodies may have been broken up by an enormous impact with another body or each other.