Daytime Meteor at Sequoia National Park

by David Cooper

I was camping this past week at Lodgepole campground at Sequoia National Park and witnessed a spectacular daytime fireball at around 6:30 PM PDT on Monday (August 21st). It was about 30 degrees above the NW horizon and traveling to the NW. The contrail lasted for several minutes. After a few minutes both my son Nathaniel and I heard a series of several sonic booms.

Unfortunately I did not have a watch on at the time and so do not have an accurate estimate of the times (from which we could have estimated the height and distance). Nathaniel thinks the sonic booms came about 5 minutes after the meteor. My recollection is about 2 minutes.

This would have been something to see at night! Have any TACos witnessed a daytime meteor before?

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