On Saturday morning (3/22/25) at 3:49am there was an incredible fireball to our north. It just happened to be centered on my night cam and created a beautiful image complete with a reflection on the water and visible through the clouds. My cams have captured a lot of fireballs, but I believe this is the brightest.
I like to put these images into a video for a little closer look.....
I thought I would do a follow up with some details that we know about this fireball. It was reported by 7 observers as far away as Benton City to American Meteor Society https://www.amsmeteors.org/. It's path seemed to be just south and west of Kamloops BC. The more reports available make it easier for them to triangulate the exact path..... So, if you see a fireball, take a moment to report it.
So.... What is a fireball? Simply put, it is a very bright meteor. There is a scale that is used to measure brightness of objects in the sky. It is called the stellar magnitude. The smaller the number the brighter the object. A "fireball" is defined as any meteor that is as bright or brighter than Venus.... or about -4 magnitude. A full moon is around -12 and I classified this as -14. Robert Lunsford of American Meteor Society is a good friend of mine. He processes the fireball reports that come into AMS. I verify some of my magnitude classifications with him as I am no expert. His response was that this fireball was at least a -14 or brighter.
For more information, here is a good link: https://www.amsmeteors.org/fireballs/faqf/
