NASA says fireball seen across south Alabama could have been meteorite dropper  

Birmingham meteorologist James Spann shared NASA's Bill Cooke's thoughts about the event last night via social media.

"Took a look at the eyewitness reports - there is a lot of scatter...The fireball first appeared to the NE of Mobile and moved westerly at about 56,000 miles per hour. The best reports indicate that it broke apart above U.S. 43 north of Mobile, and the reports of sound indicate it probably penetrated fairly low into the atmosphere before fragmenting, perhaps as low as 14 miles altitude," Cooke said, which Spann shared on his Facebook page.

Cooke explained the brightness of the object showed the fireball was probably one or two feet in diameter. "It seemed to be moving a bit fast to produce meteorites, but as I said, there is a lot of disagreement in the accounts by the eyewitnesses; I would say it is a possible meteorite dropper, and a search of the Doppler weather radar in the area may be helpful in determining if there were meteoritic particles falling to the ground."

While the fireball was visible in Tuscaloosa, Spann said in his post the object was more pronounced across the southern part of the state and in the Gulf Coast region.