Reports Of Potential Meteor Sounds Coming From Oswego

What was the loud bang of Oswego? There are new reports of potential meteor sounds and sightings over our region.

CNY Central reports that on Monday night (12/8), residents in Oswego reported hearing another big booming noise. Just last week, a meteor burning up over Central New York caused calls to 911 from many residents from Clinton to Syracuse. The loud boom caused panic on social media, and it turned out to be just a meteor.

Some people caught a flash of light and the boom on doorbell surveillance cameras at their homes.

The American Meteor Society "fireball/meteor" log reports three meteors on Monday night. The first one was widespread at 7:34 PM with over 137 reports from states including Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia and West Virginia. The second report came in at 8:32 PM with reports in multiple states again, including New York. A third report came at 9:20 PM. That's the one people in Oswego started talking about on social media.

When a very bright fireball penetrates to the stratosphere, below an altitude of about 30 miles (50 km), and explodes, there is a chance that sonic booms may be heard on the ground below. 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.

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.