American Meteor Society
Over 260 reports from 14 states
The AMS has received over 260 reports so far about of a bright fireball seen above the Ashokan Reservoir, NY on Thursday, March 28th 2019 around 6:13am EST (10:13 Universal Time). The event was mainly seen from Connecticut and Pennsylvania but we also received reports from Washington DC, Delaware, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and West Virginia.
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Trajectory
The preliminary 3D trajectory computed based on all the reports submitted to the AMS shows that the fireball was traveling from South-East to North-West and ended its flight North-West of Pine Hill, NY.
Video
We received one video of the event caught by Peter Deterline from Douglassville, PA on an AMS AllSky6 camera system:
Below is a “stack” picture obtained from the video
Fireball?
Several thousand meteors of fireball magnitude occur in the Earth’s atmosphere each day. The vast majority of these, however, occur over the oceans and uninhabited regions, and a good many are masked by daylight. Those that occur at night also stand little chance of being detected due to the relatively low numbers of persons out to notice them.
Additionally, the brighter the fireball, the more rare is the event. As a general thumb rule, there are only about 1/3 as many fireballs present for each successively brighter magnitude class, following an exponential decrease. Experienced observers can expect to see only about 1 fireball of magnitude -6 or better for every 200 hours of meteor observing, while a fireball of magnitude -4 can be expected about once every 20 hours or so.
About 25 years ago my daughter and I had been in Hawthorn, CA at the casino. On the way back to Lee Vining, CA, about an hour drive, we saw a HUGE fireball coming horizontally from the west over the Sierras, heading east. I thought it was surely going to hit the earth it was so low. I had time to stop my car and get out to watch. The whole massive ball was fire with chunks flying off & it was making LOUD hissing, spitting, popping sounds. Many chunks flying off over the mountains. We were standing on the side of the old 2 lane highway. It went on long enough to observe, stop the car, get out, watch, and ooooo & awww about it and discuss where we thought it would hit earth. We figured eastern Nevada. It was so low. Seriously, I was prepared to die when it hit. And then…it was gone! We waited for the blast that didn’t happen. Only extreme quiet. Very excited and blessed to have seen this amazing event with my daughter. We still talk about it.
Just saw something just like that tonight over Minnesota. At about 1:15 am 3/10/2021 we saw a green fire ball fly over, i thought it would explode too, but ours did, about 4 minutes after seeing it we heard it, im watching the news right now to see if any one reports it, or if it caused any damage some where up in nothern minnesota, we are just west of the twin cities.