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Re: (meteorobs) Fireball elevation vs. probability of a sonic boom



Hello Jure,

The statement in the AMS FAQ on "Fireballs and Meteorite Dropping
Fireballs" with regard to the angular altitude  at which a fireball  seemed
most likely to produce sonic booms  was empirically based upon  data
gathered from the general public on fireballs  occurring over N. America as
compiled by old-time AMS member R. Pugh.  The last paper of his (that I
know of) in this area is listed in the references as:

"Pugh, R. N., (1995). "The Diamond Lake Fireball of March 28,
     1994", Meteor News, No. 110 (Fall 1995)."


If memory serves, there was some additional corroborating observations with
regard to bright fireballs and sonic booms, in addition to Pugh's work, but
it has been 3-4 years since the FAQ was compiled and I will have to dig
around a bit to find the reference again -- fireballs are not my usual area
of interest (Jim Bedient usually handles this one).  

If Dr. Tatum's work in gathering data from the general public  for MIAC in
recent years is yielding different results, then I would certainly defer to
 his work, especially in the area of differentiating between the
hyper-sonic shock front  and terminal burst sounds.  It has been a while
since the AMS has actively chased fireballs (except via Internet) and some
recent data from the field would be interesting to compare to.

Best regards,

     Jim



James Richardson
Department of Physics
Florida State University (FSU)

Operations Manager 
American Meteor Society (AMS)
http://www.amsmeteors.org


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