Fireball Streaks Over RI During Live TV Weather Report

T.J. Del Santo has seen it all since joining WPRI-TV in 1997: blizzards, hurricanes, floods, microbursts, tornadoes. And as of Sunday: a fireball in the sky on live TV.

Del Santo said it was “more a matter of luck than anything else” when in a brief moment that lasted less than two seconds, a fireball screamed across the sky high in the atmosphere as he was delivering a forecast on Sunday morning.

“it was an amazing 1-2 seconds caught live on television Sunday morning at about 8:17AM,” Del Santo wrote on his WPRI weather blog. A fireball raced across the deep blue sky over Providence, and I watched it as it happened. Look just above the smoke stack about 3 seconds into the video.”

The video, below, should be watched full screen.

Del Santo said that he circled the streak of light in the attached photo. Pieces of burning debris from the object can be seen trailing by the smoke stack.

It is unclear exactly what caused the fireball and Del Santo said it’s unlikely we’ll find the true cause. “That’s not a typical direction for a piece of space rock to create a shooting star. It could have been a piece of space debris. We’ll likely never know.”

Had the event occurred at night, it would likely have been seen by many people, Del Santo said.

Photo courtesy: WPRI-TV