Jump to content
  • Member Statistics

    17,606
    Total Members
    7,904
    Most Online
    ArlyDude
    Newest Member
    ArlyDude
    Joined

Geomagnetic Storm Alert


Recommended Posts

The Bz (the N-S component of the Interplanetary field) has turned north which will lead to a further decline in activity. However, the Solar wind speed remains high at over 600 km/sec so we can't rule out a substorm or reversal of the polarity just yet.

Steve

Interesting. The values on the 15 min Kp chart seem to be climbing over the past hour after a bottom out of around 3. Maybe something to watch...Like you said to, the solar wind remains constant at around 650 km/sec

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for the reply.

How accurate is this image that was posted earlier?

kpmap.gif

I'm pretty close to the Kp=7 line and saw the activity was inching back up.

that map is old...the geomagnetic poll has moved so that the Geo storm has to be stronger to get the aurora farther south into North America.

http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/Aurora/index.html#kpmaps

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I spent a week @ Lake of the Woods (just over the Canadian border from MN) in the mid 90's. My fishing buddy and I randomly decided to take the truck out on some trails around 11pm. We parked on a smooth granite rock and were looking for shooting stars because the night sky was crystal clear. Started to see what looked like green spotlights dancing back and forth. I had no idea what I was looking at first. The entire sky filled with green and yellow fingers of light and they danced back and forth for about an hour. It was simply an amazing experience.

Seeing the northern lights should be on everyones bucket list. I remember that night like it was yesterday. I'm going to make it a point to see them again before I kick the bucket.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm sure... I can't think of a better place to view it. Pretty huge difference from the ground to 35,000 feet though. You can see more than 200 miles further north from that altitude.

It sounds like it was just visible enough from the ground for the guy to set up the 30 second exposure.

The other states seem to have had better views even with the naked eye.

A very faint aurora appeared around 10 pm as the sky started to cloud over. The display was easiest to see when beams formed, giving a edge with some contrast. Almost all of the activity was centered on the light dome of Geneva, NY, about 15 miles to the north. Canon D1000, 30 second exposure iso 1600.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Important to note that the maps give the location of the southern edge of the auroral oval for a given K value (or the northern edge for the Aurora Australis). Since during the big K 8 and 9 red auroral storms the top of the aurora may be as much as 1000 miles up, the aurora will be visible much further south (north)though lower in the sky. Then there are the Global aurorae seen all of the way down in the deep Tropics or even to the Equator which occur with the monster Gemag storms (such as 1859 and 1989 and briefly in 2003).. These are in a class by themselves and the normal K value relationship does not work.

Steve

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...