What's that in the sky? We're not sure, but the fireball was very bright
An object bright enough to be seen streaking across the midday sky fell across parts of the Southeast U.S. on Thursday.
The object was likely either a meteor or space junk, with most sightings of the streak of light and fireball coming from Georgia and South Carolina around 12:30 p.m., the National Weather Service office in Peachtree City, Georgia, said on social media.
Someone in Henry County, Georgia, reported a rock coming through their roof about the time they heard the sonic boom from the fireball. It left behind a hole in the ceiling about the size of a golf ball and a crack in a laminate floor, the weather service said.
Emergency officials are investigating the object that fell about 25 miles (40 kilometers) southeast of Atlanta.
Dashboard and doorbell cameras across several Southeast U.S. states caught glimpses of the fireball that appeared to be plummeting straight down. More than 140 people in Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, North Carolina, Florida and Tennessee reported the object to the American Meteor Society.
Meteors and other space debris frequently enter Earth 's atmosphere, but it is rare for an object to be so bright it can easily be seen in broad daylight.
Bright fireballs are caused by friction as an object enters the atmosphere and slows down considerably. Almost all objects break into minuscule pieces before striking the ground, according to NASA.
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The Guardian
3 hours ago
- The Guardian
Week of sweltering US heat – is this the new normal in a warming world?
The list of climate-related disasters in the US was long last week as vast swathes of America sweated under a brutal heatwave. There was a 'mass-casualty event' of fainting high-schoolers in New Jersey as a K-pop concert was cut short in Washington. Young hikers had to be rescued in New Hampshire as tarmac roads bucked and melted in South Dakota and Nebraska. Luckless Amtrak passengers were stuck on a train with no air conditioning in a Baltimore tunnel, while some subway services in New York were suspended. The Trump administration declared a power emergency in the US south-east, and in Georgia the agriculture commissioner advised residents to make sure their animals had water and shade. 'Remember to take care of our friends also,' Tyler Harper said. These incidents – and many more – were the result of the highest temperatures across the northern and middle swath of the US at this early summer date in some cases since the late 19th century. Nearly 130 million people were under extreme heat warnings or heat advisories on Thursday, according to Noaa's Weather Prediction Center, with 282 locations breaking daily heat records this week, with another 121 equalling with previous highs, Noaa data showed. Daily heat records were set in at least 50 cities in the eastern US on Tuesday alone, according to the National Weather Service, with New York City recording its hottest day since 2012, according to Noaa. Climate scientists blamed a rapidly warming Arctic for the heat dome – a consequence that they say is the result of the 'stuck' weather patterns that come from a wavier polar jet stream, which can cause not just heatwaves but also heavy rainfall and floods. A new study, published in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, said found that stalled atmospheric patterns have tripled over the last 70 years. The authors of the study claim that while climate models predict that these patterns would occur more frequently with climate change, their study is the first to demonstrate that it is already happening – and will likely intensify as the planet continues to warm. Climate Central's climate shift index estimates that high temperatures over the past few days were at least five times more likely to occur because of human-caused climate change. Climate Central scientist Zachary Labe told Politico that the early heatwave 'is a stark reminder that climate change is making these dangerous and oppressive heat waves far more likely, affecting millions of people'. 'One of easiest ways to see climate change's impact is in how it's increasing the chance these types of heatwaves will occur,' Labe told Bloomberg. 'By the middle of this century, these types of heat waves will be normal. The extremes will be even higher.' According to the American Medical Association, elevated temperatures nearly 22,000 people died from heat in 14 years between 1999 and 2023. The National Weather Service statistics show heat claiming more lives than any other weather-related event. But heat events are only fatal in the extreme. A broader, general sense of oppression and discomfort was palpable in New York last week, when the extreme hear arrived after a cool spring and gave New Yorkers little time to acclimatize. 'We all know that prolonged heat exposure can have serious effects on your overall health, including mental health, but it can also negatively affect your skin,' said Kim Laudati, chief executive of IT Intelligent Treatment, a skin regeneration business in New York. Prolonged heat exposure due to the skin's moisture-barrier protective function becomes damaged, Lauditi said, leading to water loss within deeper and surface layers of skin, resulting in a state of dehydration. Chronic heat can lead to vasodilation and persistent redness. Inflammation ensues, which can also promote heat-induced erythema, or redness, to the point of creating telangiectasia; commonly known as 'spider veins' and melasma, a skin discoloration. There is also reduced concentration, irritability, and mood swings because the body is diverting resources to regulate body temperature; the impairment of melatonin production, leading to poor sleep. Heat-related damage to the blood-brain barrier can cause lack of focus, confusion, fainting and organ failure. 'With climate change already reshaping how we live, it's more important than ever that we educate ourselves,' Lauditi said. Climate change was on the minds of voters last week in New York's mayoral primary that culminated on the hottest day of heat-dome, when a thermometer at Belvedere Castle in Central Park registered 99 degrees for the first time since July 18, 2012. Democrat mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani has said that the climate crisis is the central issue of out time and that it isn't separate from the crisis of capitalism, making it a co-traveler with his resonant message about the affordability of life, or lack of it, in the city. Zohran's climate platform is grounded in making the lives of working people better through climate action,' said Denae Ávila-Dickson with the Sunrise Movement, a climate group that endorsed Mamdani. 'He has an important commitment to transforming New York City into a national leader on climate.' 'It's clear to us that the climate crisis has been politicized, but it's not a political issue,' Ávila-Dickson added. 'It's affecting people in every city, in every state, and a lot of times we fee that it affects people in right in rural States, especially because they're not having those same kinds of resources.' In a typical year between 1979 and 2000, the average temperature in the northern hemisphere temperature would break the 21C (69.8F) barrier in July and continue for about five weeks, according to University of Maine's Climate Change Institute. But last year, the hottest on record, the northern hemisphere's average temperature held above 21C from 13 June until 5 September, and data from the Environmental Protection Agency shows that heatwaves have grown longer, more frequent and more intense over the past seven decades. 'If I was to compare this with what happened in the 20th century, it would be very unusual,' said Sonia Seneviratne, a Swiss climate scientist at the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science of the ETH Zurich, told the Washington Post.
The Guardian
16 hours ago
- The Guardian
Week of sweltering US heat – is this the new normal in a warming world?
The list of climate-related disasters in the US was long last week as vast swathes of America sweated under a brutal heatwave. There was a 'mass-casualty event' of fainting high-schoolers in New Jersey as a K-pop concert was cut short in Washington. Young hikers had to be rescued in New Hampshire as tarmac roads bucked and melted in South Dakota and Nebraska. Luckless Amtrak passengers were stuck on a train with no air conditioning in a Baltimore tunnel, while some subway services in New York were suspended. The Trump administration declared a power emergency in the US south-east, and in Georgia the agriculture commissioner advised residents to make sure their animals had water and shade. 'Remember to take care of our friends also,' Tyler Harper said. These incidents – and many more – were the result of the highest temperatures across the northern and middle swath of the US at this early summer date in some cases since the late 19th century. Nearly 130 million people were under extreme heat warnings or heat advisories on Thursday, according to Noaa's Weather Prediction Center, with 282 locations breaking daily heat records this week, with another 121 equalling with previous highs, Noaa data showed. Daily heat records were set in at least 50 cities in the eastern US on Tuesday alone, according to the National Weather Service, with New York City recording its hottest day since 2012, according to Noaa. Climate scientists blamed a rapidly warming Arctic for the heat dome – a consequence that they say is the result of the 'stuck' weather patterns that come from a wavier polar jet stream, which can cause not just heatwaves but also heavy rainfall and floods. A new study, published in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, said found that stalled atmospheric patterns have tripled over the last 70 years. The authors of the study claim that while climate models predict that these patterns would occur more frequently with climate change, their study is the first to demonstrate that it is already happening – and will likely intensify as the planet continues to warm. Climate Central's climate shift index estimates that high temperatures over the past few days were at least five times more likely to occur because of human-caused climate change. Climate Central scientist Zachary Labe told Politico that the early heatwave 'is a stark reminder that climate change is making these dangerous and oppressive heat waves far more likely, affecting millions of people'. 'One of easiest ways to see climate change's impact is in how it's increasing the chance these types of heatwaves will occur,' Labe told Bloomberg. 'By the middle of this century, these types of heat waves will be normal. The extremes will be even higher.' According to the American Medical Association, elevated temperatures nearly 22,000 people died from heat in 14 years between 1999 and 2023. The National Weather Service statistics show heat claiming more lives than any other weather-related event. But heat events are only fatal in the extreme. A broader, general sense of oppression and discomfort was palpable in New York last week, when the extreme hear arrived after a cool spring and gave New Yorkers little time to acclimatize. 'We all know that prolonged heat exposure can have serious effects on your overall health, including mental health, but it can also negatively affect your skin,' said Kim Laudati, chief executive of IT Intelligent Treatment, a skin regeneration business in New York. Prolonged heat exposure due to the skin's moisture-barrier protective function becomes damaged, Lauditi said, leading to water loss within deeper and surface layers of skin, resulting in a state of dehydration. Chronic heat can lead to vasodilation and persistent redness. Inflammation ensues, which can also promote heat-induced erythema, or redness, to the point of creating telangiectasia; commonly known as 'spider veins' and melasma, a skin discoloration. There is also reduced concentration, irritability, and mood swings because the body is diverting resources to regulate body temperature; the impairment of melatonin production, leading to poor sleep. Heat-related damage to the blood-brain barrier can cause lack of focus, confusion, fainting and organ failure. 'With climate change already reshaping how we live, it's more important than ever that we educate ourselves,' Lauditi said. Climate change was on the minds of voters last week in New York's mayoral primary that culminated on the hottest day of heat-dome, when a thermometer at Belvedere Castle in Central Park registered 99 degrees for the first time since July 18, 2012. Democrat mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani has said that the climate crisis is the central issue of out time and that it isn't separate from the crisis of capitalism, making it a co-traveler with his resonant message about the affordability of life, or lack of it, in the city. Zohran's climate platform is grounded in making the lives of working people better through climate action,' said Denae Ávila-Dickson with the Sunrise Movement, a climate group that endorsed Mamdani. 'He has an important commitment to transforming New York City into a national leader on climate.' 'It's clear to us that the climate crisis has been politicized, but it's not a political issue,' Ávila-Dickson added. 'It's affecting people in every city, in every state, and a lot of times we fee that it affects people in right in rural States, especially because they're not having those same kinds of resources.' In a typical year between 1979 and 2000, the average temperature in the northern hemisphere temperature would break the 21C (69.8F) barrier in July and continue for about five weeks, according to University of Maine's Climate Change Institute. But last year, the hottest on record, the northern hemisphere's average temperature held above 21C from 13 June until 5 September, and data from the Environmental Protection Agency shows that heatwaves have grown longer, more frequent and more intense over the past seven decades. 'If I was to compare this with what happened in the 20th century, it would be very unusual,' said Sonia Seneviratne, a Swiss climate scientist at the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science of the ETH Zurich, told the Washington Post.
NBC News
a day ago
- NBC News
Deep cuts to hurricane data could leave forecasters in the dark
Forecasters are set to lose some of their sharpest eyes in the sky just a few months before Atlantic Hurricane season peaks when the Department of Defense halts a key source of satellite data over cybersecurity concerns. The data comes from microwave sensors attached to three aging polar-orbiting satellites operated for both military and civilian purposes. Data from the sensors is critical to hurricane forecasters because it allows them to peer through layers of clouds and into the center of a storm, where rain and thunderstorms develop, even at night. The sensors don't rely on visible light. Losing the data — at a time when the National Weather Service is releasing fewer weather balloons and the agency is short on meteorologists because of budget cuts — will make it more likely that forecasters miss key developments in a hurricane, several hurricane experts said. Those changes help meteorologists determine what level of threat a storm may pose and therefore how emergency managers ought to prepare. Microwave data offers some of the earliest indications that sustained winds are strengthening inside a storm. 'It's really the instrument that allows us to look under the hood. It's definitely a significant loss. There's no doubt at all hurricane forecasts will be degraded because of this,' said Brian McNoldy, a hurricane researcher and senior research associate at the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science. 'They're able to detect when an eyewall forms in a tropical storm and if it's intensifying — or rapidly intensifying.' Researchers think rapid intensification is becoming more likely in tropical storms as the oceans warm as a result of human-caused climate change. The three satellites are operated for both military and civilian purposes through the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program, a joint effort of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Department of Defense (DoD). While hurricane experts said they were concerned about losing the tool, Kim Doster, NOAA's communications director, downplayed the decision's effect on hurricane forecasting by the National Weather Service. In an email, Doster said the military's microwave data 'is a single dataset in a robust suite of hurricane forecasting and modeling tools in the NWS portfolio.' Doster said these models include data from geostationary satellites — a different system that constantly observes Earth from about 22,300 miles away and offers a vantage point that appears fixed because the satellites synchronize with Earth's rotation. They also ingest measurements from Hurricane Hunter aircraft missions, buoys, weather balloons, land-based radar and from other polar-orbiting satellites, including NOAA's Joint Polar Satellite System, which she said provides 'the richest, most accurate satellite weather observations available.' A U.S. Space Force official said the satellites and their instruments in question remain functional and that the data will be sent directly to weather satellite readout terminals across DoD. The Navy's Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center made the decision to stop processing that data and sharing it publicly, the official said. The Navy did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Earlier this week, a division of the Navy notified researchers that it would cease to process and share the data on or before June 30 and some researchers received an email from the Navy's Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center, saying that its data storage and sharing program relied on a processing station that was using an 'end-of-life' operating system with vulnerabilities. 'The operating system cannot be upgraded, poses a cybersecurity concern, and introduces risk to DoD networks,' the email, which was reviewed by NBC News, said. The move will cut the amount of microwave data available to forecasters in half, McNoldy estimated. This microwave data is also used by snow and ice scientists to track the extent of polar sea ice, which helps scientists understand long-term climate trends. Sea ice forms from frozen ocean water. It grows in coverage during winter months and typically melts during warmer times of the year. Sea ice reflects sunlight back into space, which cools the planet. That makes it an important metric to track over time. The extent of summer Arctic sea ice is trending lower because of global warming. Walt Meier, a senior research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center, said his program learned of the Navy's decision earlier this week. Meier said the satellites and sensors are about 16 years old. Researchers have been preparing for them to eventually fail, but they weren't expecting the military to pull the plug on data with little warning, he said. Meier said the National Snow and Ice Data Center has relied on the military satellites for data on sea ice coverage since 1987, but will adapt its systems to use similar microwave data from a Japanese satellite, called AMSR-2, instead. 'It certainly could be a few weeks before we get that data into our system,' Meier said. 'I don't think it's going to undermine our sea ice climate data record in terms of confidence in it, but it's going to be more challenging.' The polar-orbiting satellites that are part of the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program provide intermittent coverage of hurricane-prone areas. The satellites typically zip around the globe in a north-south orientation every 90-100 minutes in a relatively low orbit, Meier said. The microwave sensors scan across a narrow swath of the earth, which Meier estimated at roughly 1,500 miles. As the Earth rotates, these polar-orbiting satellites can capture imagery that helps researchers determine the structure and potential intensity of a storm, if it happens to be in their path. 'It's often just by luck, you'll get a really nice pass over a hurricane,' McNoldy said, adding that the change will reduce the geographic area covered by microwave scans and the frequency of scans of a particular storm. Andy Hazelton, a hurricane modeler and associate scientist with the University of Miami Cooperative Institute for Marine & Atmospheric Studies, said the microwave data is used in some hurricane models and also by forecasters who can access near-real time visualizations of the data. Hazelton said forecasters are always looking for visual signatures in microwave data that often provide the first evidence a storm is rapidly intensifying and building strength. The National Hurricane Center defines rapid intensification as a 35-mph or higher increase in sustained winds inside a tropical storm within 24 hours. Losing the microwave data is particularly important now because in recent years, scientists have observed an increase in rapid intensification, a trend likely fueled, in part, by climate change as ocean waters warm. A 2023 study published the journal Scientific Reports found that tropical cyclones in the Atlantic Ocean were about 29% more likely to undergo rapid intensification from 2001 to 2020, compared to 1971 to 1990. Last year, Hurricane Milton strengthened from a tropical storm to a Category-5 hurricane in just 36 hours. Some of that increase took place overnight, when other satellite instruments offer less information. The trend is particularly dangerous when a storm, like Hurricane Idalia, intensifies just before striking the coast. 'We've certainly seen in recent years, many cases of rapid intensification ahead of landfall. That's the kind of thing you really don't want to miss,' McNoldy said, adding that microwave data 'are excellent at giving the important extra 12 hours of lead time to see the inner core changes happening.' Brian LaMarre, the former meteorologist-in-charge at the National Weather Service's weather forecasting station in Tampa Bay, said the data is also useful for predicting flood impacts as a hurricane comes ashore. 'That scan can help predict where the heavier precipitation and rainfall rates can be,' LaMarre said. 'This data is critically important to public safety.' Hurricane season begins June 1 and ends Nov. 30. It typically starts to peak in late summer and early fall. NOAA forecasters have predicted a more busy 2025 hurricane season than typical, with six to ten hurricanes.
