Mount Blanco

Automated detection

MetDetect searched the KLBB radar around the fireball time. It found the fall: the radar cells it reports are mostly the debris identified by hand.

• 83of the 88 hand-identified cells on KLBB found
• 5hand-identified cells missed
• 43cells reported that were not identified by hand

MetDetect RUN-41, 29 Oct 2026. Leave one fall out: every learned part was trained without the fall it is scored on. The design falls were used to develop the method, so their scores are development results; the held-out falls were not. The hand identification is the reference these numbers are graded against.

Dark flight

After the fireball goes dark, meteorites fall freely through the wind. Each radar cell is flown down to the ground through the winds of that day; the coloured areas show where stones of each mass most likely landed, and the black line runs from light to heavy stones (solid where the radar traced it, dashed where extended).

Pixel estimate, computed by P. Shober with MetDetect: winds from ERA5 (ECMWF), masses for an ordinary-chondrite density over a range of shapes. Preliminary: it does not fit the fireball itself, so the heavy end of the line is an extrapolation. Stars mark recovered meteorites (published positions, not independently checked); they are drawn for comparison only and were never used to make the maps. Counted stones are those of 10 g and up, or of unpublished mass.

Human identification

The radar signatures of this fall were identified by hand by Marc Fries (NASA ARES, Johnson Space Center). Read the original report (archived copy).

Meteorites

• Mount Blanco · L5

Publications

Fries M., Fries J., Hankey M. & Matson R. (2016) Meteorite falls observed in U.S. weather radar data in 2015 and 2016 (to date). 79th Annual Meeting of the Meteoritical Society, abstract 6536

Know of a paper or a recovered meteorite we missed? Tell us.