Northeast Ohio locals heard and felt a loud boom that authorities said could be attributed to a meteor impacting Earth’s atmosphere in the area.
National Weather Service (NWS) Cleveland observing program leader Brian Mitchell said satellite imagery indicates a meteor hit the atmosphere, resulting in the boom, according to Cleveland Magazine. Mitchell said he looked at Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM) data and found indications of activity at approximately 9 a.m. local time.
“We’ve had no actual reports yet that anything hit the ground, so it could have mostly burned up as it entered the atmosphere,” Mitchell said. “I’m sure there’ll be other scientists looking at it, looking at any other data we can find, to see if we can get more answers.”
Jared Rackley, an NWS Pittsburg employee, captured footage of an apparent meteor streaking through the sky. NWS Pittsburg posted the video on X.
One of our employees, Jared Rackley, caught this morning’s meteor on camera from the Pittsburgh area. pic.twitter.com/2LdqOpChti
— NWS Pittsburgh (@NWSPittsburgh) March 17, 2026
Signs have been reported from as far as Erie County Ohio and across the Cleveland region, Mitchell said, according to Cleveland Magazine. He noted that he hasn’t confirmed the visual reports but has heard from Northeast Ohioans who observed them. (RELATED: Satellite Data Records Bolide Meteor Exploding Right Beside Gulf Coast Of Florida)
“Heard the loudest boom just now in northeast OH. People heard it as far as Avon. What was that? Meteor?” one user asked on X, tagging NWS Cleveland.
“The latest GLM imagery (1301Z) does suggest that the boom was a result of a meteor,” NWS Cleveland responded.
GLM monitors the “total lightning” — including inside clouds, from cloud to cloud and from cloud to ground — throughout the Americas, according to WLWT 5. The GLM captures hundreds of pictures each second.
These kinds of boom events are uncommon in Northeast Ohio, Mitchell said, according to Cleveland Magazine. “You do have meteor shows or stuff, but stuff that doesn’t actually reach our lower atmosphere, to do what it did today,” he added.