Falling meteor lights up sky over Florida

Social media was lit up by a falling meteor that lit up the skies over Northern Florida on Saturday night. The sight was so astonishing that one driver’s dashboard camera captured him shouting “What the f— was that!” after the blazing space rock plummeted to Earth.

Videos posted by witnesses who happened to be out driving — and who had their dash cams turned on— showed the meteor streaking down over the Florida sky at about 11:55 p.m. Saturday night.

The National Weather Service’s Tallahassee forecast office tweeted images of the meteor showing up on a lightning map.

Forecasters explained that the meteor is not the bright line of light extending in a northeast-southwest diagonal line in the map image. The meteor is actually a quick and easy-to-miss purple dot that briefly blinks in the Panhandle just slightly east of the upper portion of the Big Bend area.