Weather was not responsible for the big bang over Norwich last night according to weather forecasters.

Weather was not responsible for the big bang over Norwich last night according to weather forecasters.

People living in parts of Norfolk were startled to hear a big bang last night.

The bang, which happened at about 10.30pm, could be heard by people living in an area which covered from Sprowston to Pulham Market.

Dozens of people have taken to the social networking site Twitter to try to find out what caused the noise.

There has been no official confirmation yet of what caused the noise, although it is not thought to have been the weather and could be a sonic boom from a jet fighter.

Phil Garner, a weather forecaster at Weatherquest, a private weather forecasting and weather analysis company based at the University of East Anglia (UEA) said there was no weather actovity after 9pm which could have accounted for the bang.

He said: 'There was nothing over East Anglia at all. The only activity was down in South West England.'

Mr Garner said he did not know what caused the bang with other possible causes being an aeroplane, a meteor breaking up, seismic activity or lighting - although there were no reports of either seismic activity or lighting.

A spokesman, for RAF Marham in West Norfolk, who revealed there were no Tornados at the base at the moment and no night flying taking place, said: 'We were all convinced it was thunder.'

A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence (MOD) said they were not aware of any military activity which might have been responsible for the noise.

A spokesman said: 'We've not been briefed. If it was something serious or big then we would know. We haven't heard of anything at all.'