While conditions are favorable for meteor observing during this period, hourly rates are expected to be low, especially from the northern hemisphere.
But sometimes during these calm periods, a large space bolide can suddenly break up baffling people with its sonic booms and loud rumbles… This is what actually occurred over Florida tonight!
The fireball lights up the sky after 40s of video:
Here’s a sampling of some sonic booms pending reports from American Meteor Society. It looks like Lake City, Florida got most of it:
“windows and walls shook along with a loud pop and boom”
Lindsey E, Lake City, Florida
“Sonic Boom, shook the house”
Andrew C, Lake City, Florida
“Spoke with a friend who lives about 10 miles west of my location who was outside when he saw the sky light up and turned to the east to see a large “falling star” break apart and almost explode he said it was the biggest and most intense he has ever seen and it was headed east toward Lake City Florida he also heard a loud boom that shook his garage he said it sounded like blasting at a quarry”
Zach W, Lake City, Florida
Very cool! I’m in Sarasota, Florida and saw that people just a few miles from me made a report. I just moved into an apartment a few months ago and heard a loud noise overhead that sounded like a jet airplane while I was watching a movie.
Why so significant? The more sonic reports indicates a deeper penetrating object into our atmosphere. Back to back huge fireball events with a high percentage of sonic reports is very rare, going back years probably, if ever within this short of period of time. For example, the biggest fireball in AMS records was on December 29th of last year, and that event had 1% of reports with sound. Huge fireballs do tend to happen in clusters. In the past year if there was a huge fireball, there was an 80% of 1 or more within the next 5 days. There was the huge meteor event on the 17th of February. The one on the 17th with reports still coming in looks to be the highest % of sonic reports for an event that size since September 2013.
There hasn’t been a really big meteorite fall in the US since the one Park Forest, Il in 2003. It damaged several buildings. Here’s what that one looked like coming in:
But sometimes during these calm periods, a large space bolide can suddenly break up baffling people with its sonic booms and loud rumbles… This is what actually occurred over Florida tonight!
The fireball lights up the sky after 40s of video:
Here’s a sampling of some sonic booms pending reports from American Meteor Society. It looks like Lake City, Florida got most of it:
“windows and walls shook along with a loud pop and boom”
Lindsey E, Lake City, Florida
“Sonic Boom, shook the house”
Andrew C, Lake City, Florida
“Spoke with a friend who lives about 10 miles west of my location who was outside when he saw the sky light up and turned to the east to see a large “falling star” break apart and almost explode he said it was the biggest and most intense he has ever seen and it was headed east toward Lake City Florida he also heard a loud boom that shook his garage he said it sounded like blasting at a quarry”
Zach W, Lake City, Florida
Very cool! I’m in Sarasota, Florida and saw that people just a few miles from me made a report. I just moved into an apartment a few months ago and heard a loud noise overhead that sounded like a jet airplane while I was watching a movie.
Why so significant? The more sonic reports indicates a deeper penetrating object into our atmosphere. Back to back huge fireball events with a high percentage of sonic reports is very rare, going back years probably, if ever within this short of period of time. For example, the biggest fireball in AMS records was on December 29th of last year, and that event had 1% of reports with sound. Huge fireballs do tend to happen in clusters. In the past year if there was a huge fireball, there was an 80% of 1 or more within the next 5 days. There was the huge meteor event on the 17th of February. The one on the 17th with reports still coming in looks to be the highest % of sonic reports for an event that size since September 2013.
There hasn’t been a really big meteorite fall in the US since the one Park Forest, Il in 2003. It damaged several buildings. Here’s what that one looked like coming in: