Event: 20260814-074833

Hundreds of eyewitnesses in the states of Idaho, Oregon, Washington and the Canadian province of British Columbia have filed reports on the American Meteor Society website of a bright fireball seen at 12:48 AM Pacific Daylight Time on the morning of August 14th (2026 August 14, 07:48 UTC). An analysis of these accounts, combined with data from three publicly accessible cameras and the Geostationary Lightning Mappers on the GOES satellites, shows that the fireball first became visible at an altitude of 48 miles above the Washington town of Soap Lake, moving north at 33,000 miles per hour. The object - a small piece of an asteroid about 16 inches in diameter weighing approximately 170 pounds - travelled 36 miles through the upper atmosphere before fragmenting 28 miles above Sim’s Corner. When it broke apart, the fireball unleashed an energy of 10 tons of TNT, creating a pressure/shock wave that propagated to the ground, causing the booms reported by some eyewitnesses. Doppler weather radar indicates that some small meteorites may be on the ground in the area.

This fireball was not part of the Perseid meteor shower; it was a background sporadic meteor.

We thank the American Meteor Society for providing the eyewitness accounts.

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Event Data