Meteor fireball blazes over Florida night sky - UPDATE

Sott.net
Wed, 13 Feb 2019 06:41 UTC

© YouTube/AMS/J. Saunders (screen capture)

A number of Space Coast residents from Titusville to Palm Bay took to social media to describe seeing an apparent meteor streak across the skies Tuesday morning, creating an otherworldly burst of green as it passed over.

The 45th Weather Squadron has since confirmed with Florida Today that it was a meteor passing through the night sky early Tuesday morning, 12th February, reports J.D. Gallup.

On Facebook, some residents also reported hearing a loud rumble.

Jacob Kelley, 35, said he had just arrived home when he spotted an animal running across his property. He said he walked through the door to check his surveillance video when he spotted the flash.

A video has been uploaded on the American Meteor Society Website. AMS Event: 711-2019, Report 160939 (711a-2019) Credit:J. Saunders:

"I had literally walked in the house when it happened," said Kelley. "When I first saw it, I was like, 'what the heck was that,' and then I watched from a few different angles. You can see the streak. It was pretty cool," he said.

On Feb. 1st, a daytime meteor fireball passed over the Florida Keys - and was picked up on weather radar - before slamming into an area in western Cuba, shattering windows and rattling residents. See: Meteor EXPLODES, shatters windows in Pinar del Río, Cuba - after streaking over Florida Keys

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Update: Florida Today reports on 14th February:

The meteor that streaked across the skies of Central Florida on Tuesday was a "large fireball" that likely exploded over the Atlantic Ocean with the energy of a tenth of a kiloton - or the explosive force equal to that of 100 tons of TNT, according to a sky watcher group.

"We're still processing the data, but it was large, maybe a foot across," said Dwayne Free, director of the Spalding Allsky Camera Network which provides data to NASA's Planetary Defense Office's Asteroid Threat Assessment Project in California.

Other videos of the event have been uploaded to YouTube: