Meteor streaks across sky, triggers sonic boom in Ohio, Pennsylvania

Residents across Western Pennsylvania and Eastern Ohio were startled Tuesday morning, March 17, by a bright “fireball” in the sky.

A large boom was heard in the area that shook homes. Later, experts confirmed that the boom was due to a meteor entering Earth’s atmosphere.

The incident occurred around sunrise and was captured on camera by a National Weather Service (NWS) employee in the Pittsburgh area.

In the footage, a clear, bright streak of light flashes across the morning sky.

On X (formerly known as Twitter), the department posted: “We’re receiving reports across western PA and eastern OH of a loud boom and a fireball in the sky. Our satellite data suggest it was possibly a meteor entering the atmosphere.”

The data was collected from the Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM), which is a satellite-based instrument typically used to detect lightning to estimate the meteor’s entry.

The presence of a meteor is also confirmed by the NWS Cleveland office, which stated: “The latest GLM imagery (1301Z) does suggest that the boom was a result of a meteor.”

Besides this visual sighting, the impact of the meteor on the atmosphere was strong enough to be recorded on a seismograph, an instrument used to measure earthquakes, which recorded the sound boom produced by the meteor’s impact.

In Ohio, residents in areas such as Pickerington felt their homes shaking due to the disintegration of the meteor.

An official path has not been released by the American Meteor Society yet.