SUMMARY

SUMMARY

This event was a PROBABLE meteorite fall that occurred at 12:07:56 PM local time on 02 Dec 2020, or 17:07:56 UTC. Events are recorded as "probable" if they produce well-defined signatures of a meteorite fall in weather radar imagery at the time and place described by eyewitnesses, but no meteorites have been recovered from the event to date. The fireball was a bright daytime fireball and 181 eyewitnesses reported it to the American Meteor Society across Ontario, New York, Michigan, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. The location of eyewitnesses was strongly influenced by cloud cover. Ten eyewitnesses reported hearing sonic booms from the passing fireball.

The name "Sherwood" is provisional, and was chosen becaus it is in the approximate center of the strewn field. The actual name of this fall will depend on the finder(s) and the Meteoritical Society.

Meteorites have not been recovered from this event.

This event was recorded by the Geosynchronous Lightning Mapper (GLM) instrument aboard the NOAA GOES-16 satellite, visible from orbit despite the fact that it was noontime at the site and well lit by the Sun.

The calculated strewn field shown here assumes that the fireball terminated at a height of 25 km at a site calculated from the locations of radar signatures. Winds at the time of the event were strong and out of the west to WNW. Falling meteorites were shifted towards the ESE from the terminus site, which followed an azimuth of approximately 249 degrees.

Weather radar typically preferentially spots smaller meteorites, because smaller stones take longer to reach the ground giving the radars more time to detect them. The radar signatures in this fall are all for meteorites smaller than 2.5g, but that does not mean that fallen meteorites are all small. Larger meteorites tend to slip past the radars and land undetected. The calculated strewn field shown here identifies the likely landing sites of those larger rocks.

This event is recorded as American Meteor Society event number 7267 for the year 2020. Signatures of falling meteorites can be found in imagery from one (possibly two) nearby weather radars. In the NEXRAD weather radar network operated by NOAA, the KBGM (Binghamton, NY) and possibly the KTYX (Fort Drum, NY) radars record signatures of falling meteorites.

The first appearance of falling meteorites on radar occurs at 17:11:1.3 UTC UTC and 5802 m above sea level (ASL) in the 1709 UTC data set for the KTYX radar in the 1.84 degree elevation radar sweep. This radar signature is considered a "possible" signature because it appears ~7km southeast of other signatures from smaller meteorites. This distance might be explained if the fireball fragmented extensively, or it may be a spurious data point. Signatures consistent with falling meteorites appear in a total of four (possibly five) radar sweeps from the two radars, with a final signature appearing at 17:16:54.1 UTC.