The U.S. East was treated to a large, bright fireball – as bright as the moon, according to reports – on Sunday evening, January 12, 2014.
From any one spot on Earth, it’s rare to see a meteor as bright as the moon. But meteors of this brightness are not uncommon, given the Earth as a whole. The fireball was seen from primarily in Connecticut, but witnesses from Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island also reported seeing the fireball.
The American Meteor Society (AMS) says that hundreds of witnesses have filed reports of a large, bright, long-lasting fireball – an exceptionally bright meteor – seen over the U.S. East (New England) on Sunday evening, January 12, 2014. The time was 5:20 p.m. EST (2220 UTC).
You can see the reports here and there.
These large and bright fireballs result from chunks of space debris entering our atmosphere. In recent years, due to increasing interconnectivity between people, we hear about these meteors more often!
On Sunday, January 12 at about 5:20pm I was driving eastbound on the 401 highway, just east of Toronto, Ontario along the north shore of Lake Ontario and saw something (a whitish, bluish, greenish streaking light), streaking from southwest to northeast, and either diasappearing into cloud or extinguishing itself. It was faster than a plane, but not too fast. Could I have seen what you have described this far north?