NORTHEASTERN OHIO AND PARTS OF PENNSYLVANIA — A meteor exploded over northeastern Ohio on March 17, 2026, creating a thunderous boom heard across parts of Ohio and Pennsylvania. The explosion occurred when the meteor fragmented at an altitude of 34 miles over Valley City, north of Medina, Ohio.

The meteor was first visible at an altitude of about 50 miles above Lake Erie in northern Ohio, traveling east of south at 45,000 miles per hour. Some residents reported seeing a fireball and a bright streak flash across the sky just before 9 a.m. Eastern Time.

The fragmentation caused sonic booms and explosive noises that were heard and felt widely across northeastern Ohio and parts of Pennsylvania. The meteor likely unleashed energy equivalent to 250 tons of TNT when it fragmented.

The Pittsburgh office of the National Weather Service posted a video on X showing a fireball with a long tail moving across a cloudless sky. The Cleveland office of the National Weather Service shared GOES-19 satellite imagery indicating that the boom resulted from a meteor. The Cleveland office posted: "The latest GLM imagery (1301Z) does suggest that the boom was a result of a meteor."

The meteor was caused by an asteroid nearly six feet in diameter and weighing about seven tons. The fireball traveled over 34 miles through the upper atmosphere before fragmenting. Some fragments most likely continued through the skies, producing meteorites around Medina County, Ohio.

Area residents posted on social media descriptions of the sounds of the boom. The American Meteor Society received 140 eyewitness reports of the event from across the Midwest and the Northeast. The reports came from people in ten U.S. states, including Illinois, Kentucky and New York, as well as Washington, D.C., and Ontario, Canada.

Meteoroids are rocky objects traveling through space; when they enter Earth's atmosphere and create fireballs, they are called meteors. Any fragments that fall to Earth's surface are meteorites. Small space rocks, bits of dust and old rocket parts hit Earth daily, but most burn up harmlessly in the atmosphere. Large meteors that create bright fireballs are relatively rare but not uncommon.