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Cameras record fireball in Western Washington skies

SEATTLE — Cameras captured a fireball moving across Western Washington skies Monday night.

Corey Clarke said his camera is in South Seattle and the camera is pointed north. It recorded the meteor as it streaked across the sky.

The timecode on the video shows it happened shortly after 11 p.m.

Clarke was not the only person who recorded the fireball.

It was also recorded by Daniel Cohen’s dash camera while he was driving with his wife on the northbound Interstate 5 offramp near Mountlake Terrace.

William K. Smith of Tacoma tweeted that his security camera also captured the fireball.

“A fireball is another term for a very bright meteor, generally brighter than magnitude -4, which is about the same magnitude of the planet Venus as seen in the morning or evening sky,” according to the American Meteor Society. “A bolide is a special type of fireball which explodes in a bright terminal flash at its end, often with visible fragmentation.”

The meteor is not the first that has been spotted over Western Washington. On Oct. 13, 2022, one was spotted at 10:18 p.m.

AMS asks those who see such an event to report it to them with as many details as possible, such as brightness, length across the sky, color, and how long it lasted.