Are you sure you thought you heard what sounded like "WNYC" and not "WNCY". WNIC is 100.3 in Dearborn, MI, 97.9 Columbus is WNCI. I still think you likely heard WNCI, as it has a powerful signal and Columbus->Escanaba is a reasonable distance for meteor scatter.
In general, the distance of an average meteor scatter path is shorter than an average sporadic-E path, as a meteor usually generates more ions when it reaches the thicker atmosphere closer to earth than the E layer (the fact there is more air also causes most meteor bursts to be VERY brief, as any free ions produced are quickly reabsorbed into the molecules that are the components of air -mostly nitrogen and oxygen).
There is probably no "minimum distance" for meteor scatter, as a really large meteor will continue to ionize the air until it burns out (or, very rarely, strikes the ground and becomes a meteorite). A meteor close to your receiver could scatter signals very close to your home. A really large meteor could also cause the strongest, longest lasting, and highest MUF DX as well, as it will generate ionization even in the E-layer of the ionosphere, with a higher "view" for a longer horizon, and ionization that can last for many seconds or even up to about a minute (as free ions can remain in the thin air in the E-layer as there is little oppurtunity for the ions to combine with molecules in the thinner air).
In general, while about 1000 miles (1600km) is a "classic" distance for sporadic-E DX on FM and television, it represents the longest meteor burst one would expect to see. Typical meteor burst is probably about 400-700 miles, with "too short" and "too far" meteor burst more common than "too short" and "too far" sporadic-E. Back in the day, TV and FM DXers looked to meteor scatter to fill in the "gap" between the 800-1300 mile "ring" of sporadic-E DX and the stations within about 300 miles that dominated tropospheric openings and tended to overpower any weak tropo signals behind them.
When I was living in Detroit, and Detroit's channel 2 station was silent until about 6:10 in the morning, WDTN in Dayton would be running an ID slide with big letters - I received them by 198-mile meteor scatter a few times. My best (pure) meteor scatter DX was from Scottsbluff, NE, about 1035 miles.
Most of the posted records for meteor scatter on the lowband TV channels are about 1400 miles, but some of these may have been "hybrid" paths, when some other form of propagation was already extending the range at either the transmitting or receiving end.
The record for meteor burst TV DX is about 1865 miles, and was known to be a hybrid path, as DXers in the south central US were observing sporadic-E from western Mexico, when a meteor burst briefly completed a path to Michigan.
