https://www.forbes.com/sites/j...vity-say-scientists/

“For the first time in months, the northern lights—also called the aurora borealis—are possible this weekend at lower latitudes after a series of massive X-class solar flares were detected from the sun.

However, as some misinformation suggests, the incoming geomagnetic storm will not be the biggest since 1859.

Massive Sunspot

Anyone with solar filters or eclipse glasses left from April 8's total solar eclipse can easily see a dark patch on the sun today. It's called AR36364 and has recently produced a series of intense solar flares (which take just eight minutes to travel from the sun) and coronal mass ejections.

A CME is a cloud of magnetic fields and charged particles from the sun that streams into space at up to 1,900 miles (3,000 kilometers) per second.

The activity quickly prompted the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, California, to issue an ENLIL prediction and a "G4 Watch," shorthand for a class-4 geomagnetic storm—a severe disturbance of Earth's magnetic field caused by the solar wind. A G1 is the weakest, and a G5 is the strongest.



Geomagnetic Activity

The timing is crucial to understand. Although solar flares travel at light speed, CMEs, part of the sun’s solar wind, take a few days to reach Earth. According to NOAA, several CMEs will "quite likely" reach Earth, leading to "highly elevated" geomagnetic activity—that means the northern lights.

The CMEs traveled at different speeds but are expected to arrive together at Earth by late Friday, May 10 or early Saturday, May 11. According to SpaceWeather, when fast-moving CMEs overtake slower CMEs in front of them, shock waves of their collision "do a good job sparking geomagnetic storms when they strike Earth's magnetic field."



"The aurora may become visible over much of the northern half of the country and maybe as far south as Alabama to northern California," said NOAA.

The northern lights are typically restricted to the Arctic latitudes in the northern hemisphere. Usually, they occur as an oval around the planet. The stronger the geomagnetic storm, the farther south they tend to occur. G2 storms can be seen as far south as New York and Idaho; for G3, it’s Illinois and Oregon; and for G4, it’s Alabama and northern California.

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this [+]
NASA/SDO
Best Conditions

"Wait until darkness—this is very late/never for some northern locations—and find a clear/dark view north," said Dr. Ryan French, a solar physicist at the National Solar Observatory (NSO) in Boulder, Colorado and the author of The Sun: Beginner’s Guide To Our Local Star. "Best conditions will likely be around local midnight, with cameras providing better sensitivity than your eyes."

However, French also warned that the models can't predict the magnetic orientation of the eruptions, which is "the crucial factor in determining how far south the northern lights are visible." "To create a good show, we want a magnetic field pointing the opposite direction to Earth's mag field," he said.

The most famous solar storm in recorded history is the "Carrington Event" of late August and early September 1859, when astronomer Richard C. Carrington observed the most powerful geomagnetic storm known to date.

This weekend's geomagnetic disruption will not be on that scale—but what exactly occurs, only time will tell.

Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.”



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Also be prepared for possible communications and data disruptions, GPS problems and power outages over the next 3 days. Sigforum could even go down!

Ham Radio / HF propagation will likely be toast.

Thanks for the heads up! I've always wanted to see the Aurora, and never have. It's raining tonight, but it's supposed to be nicer this weekend. We'll be sure to go out and take a look.

If you are interested in these kind of things, there is a website called spaceweather.com that is a good resource. I browse it often.

The year's Aurora season has been kind of a bust up here. Figures it will be good this weekend as we're now in astronomical twilight and it doesn't really get dark enough to see them. Top top it off I'm going t Valdez this weekend and the forecast is wet, shitty and cold.

Pic from November this season.

For what it's worth, here's Accuweather's aurora visibility forecast map showing where it may be visible, with their take on cloudiness for tonight factored in.



Personally, if I lived in the possible areas (which I don't) rather than the "not viewable" south, I'd keep an eye to the north for the next few nights even if I were in the 'poor conditions' area. Breaks in the clouds have been known to happen.

I got to see the Aurora Borealis from a rooftop in Cambridge MA one time - memorable indeed. Definitely worth trying for.

Here are their suggestions for how/where to look for it:

quote:

To see the aurora, people must travel to an area with very little light pollution and look toward the north. It may appear as a green or red glow above the horizon.

I spent a lot of time in Fort MCMurray, Yellowknife and Whitehorse back when I was working in aviation. Saw lots of aurora.

quote:

Originally posted by JohnO:
Ham Radio / HF propagation will likely be toast.

This is kind of wild. K: 9 and A: 118. "Extremely severe storm".

I was expecting a boat load of noise, but my waterfall is just black. No traffic whatsoever on 20, 40, 80, or 160.

I unplugged my antenna just in case it gets worse.

You can see it crystal clear here in central Alabama right now. Quite beautiful.
A sight I never thought I’d see.

During my time in the interior of Alaska (winter 1973- fall of 1979)Ft. Greely / Delta Junction /Fairbanks saw the northern lights many times.. Best sightings were during the dead of winter nights when night skies are really dark ..... Seen very dim light shows all the way up to full blown horizon to horizon . Now the scientist claim this does not occur but have heard sounds being made as the lights dance across the skies. But what do they know.....Blues/greens/pinks/purpules/yellows/etc.... Even national geographic quality photos do not do them justice........ drill sgt.

Cloudy and to close to the city lights to see them tonight

Cloudy and rain here, and I am extremely disappointed.

I have always enjoyed watching the skies, and missed quite a few events, but most events repeat. This possibility of aurora hasn't been at this latitude in what, 40 years?

Cloudy and rain in the Yoop tonight!

Had partial clouds earlier, but saw a pink tint in the sky about 11:30. We took the kids and walked down the road to the middle of a cornfield to get away from the trees, but it didn't really get any better. I worked my ass off all day building a fence and fixing a mower, and didn't eat enough, so I woke up at 2:15 with a blood sugar of 52 and had to eat something. Clouds have moved in and you can't see anything now...I was really hoping for a good view.

Watched some random dancing shafts of light with my NODs until I couldn't handle the mosquitos anymore. Yes, here in Arizona.

iPhone did not let me down…

We saw it in Northwest Arkansas last night.

Nobody else thought to do a time lapse? I really wasn't expecting to see much, nestled between Seattle and Tacoma, but I was surprised.

quote:

Sigforum could even go down!

Et tu Sigforum?
Say it ain't so.