09 January 2014

Aurora Borealis alert for tonight and tomorrow


The viewing area for the northern aurora will stretch to lower latitudes tonight and tomorrow because of recent solar activity:
On Tuesday, the first solar flare of the year erupted from the sun. This huge flare blew out from a sunspot seven times the size of the Earth. Since Tuesday, super-charged solar particles have been hurtling toward Earth.

When these particles crash into the Earth’s magnetic field this can create a larger than normal aurora around the North Pole. And if the particles are strong enough those Northern Lights can be seen further south in the United States.
I was delighted when reading about this to discover that there is a website for monitoring aurora activity.   That's where I took the screencap above (showing aurora probabilities right now, with half the U.S. still in daylight; the image updates and refreshes every 30 seconds).

Of note to Kiwis and others in the southern hemisphere, the website also has a comparable probability map for the Aurora Australis.

Update:  New map for Friday morning -


The intensity is greater and area of coverage greater.  Might be interesting tonight.

3 comments:

  1. Too bad I'm cloaked in clouds and rain (1.4in rain yesterday). I've never actually seen the aurora and I'd love love love to photograph it!

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  2. Was sorely disappointed last night when I wanted to show my kids the Northern Lights... and it was cloudy. Found another "tracker" site though, and this one might be a bit easier to understand: http://www.softservenews.com/Aurora.htm (and it includes links to the NOAA site above)

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