A cornucopia of null results: A statistical analysis of fireballs reported to the American Meteor SocietyOPEN ACCESS 

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Althea V. Moorhead

PDF (OPEN ACCESS) (preview, 6 July 2026)

Update (14 July 2026): LINK
Icarus, available online 14 July 2026, 117259

“Highlights

  • The number and characteristics of fireballs reported to the American Meteor Society in early 2026 is consistent with overall trends.
  • We see little evidence of the “February fireballs” phenomenon; instead, the greatest number of fireballs are reported to the American Meteor Society in November.
  • We demonstrate the use of Poisson regression to analyze these data, and suggest its use for similar data sets.”

“In March 2026, the American Meteor Society announced that a “surge” of large fireballs had been reported to their website in the first quarter of the year, and that these fireballs had certain characteristics (radiant clustering and reports of delayed sound). We find this data set to be an excellent use case for Poisson regression, which, in our opinion, is underutilized in meteor astronomy. This report serves as a brief primer on Poisson regression and related statistical techniques as well as an analysis of AMS fireball counts. We find that the number of events reported in early 2026 is in line with the overall pattern of activity. We also find little evidence of the “February fireballs” phenomenon.”

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