Finally, There Are Lights Out, No Clouds, And I'm In Anchorage

 @AuroraNotify posts photos people take of Northern Lights.  In Anchorage we can see them start early in the day from Finland, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, then Canada.  But this fall/winter, it was usually cloudy when there were supposed to be good lights.  

And then we were out of town gramping when there were good lights and clear skies in Anchorage..  

But tonight had good lights predicted and clear skies.  I went out on the deck several times for about 15 minutes each.  You look up and it's like there are faint wisps of cloud, but you can see stars through the wisps and they move. 

The fourth time I went out the faint wisps exploded.  These pics are from my iPhone.  What I saw was much, much brighter but not as colorful.  The phone picks up things my eyes don't.  But here are a few sudden bursts of light right over the deck.  

This all happened in about five minutes or less.  And then things went back to faint gauzy ghosts floating and shapeshifting in the sky.  

Aurora Notify Twitter Feed Lit Up Yesterday - But We Had Clouds - More Aurora For Tonight

When there's a significant event on the sun likely to cause northern lights, my Aurora Notify feed tells of the approaching light show.  First there are pictures from northern Europe - maybe Scandinavia, Scotland, Ireland.  Then perhaps someone in Iceland posts a picture and then we started getting the Canadian reports.  So Alaskans have plenty of time to prepare.

So the notices Wednesday and Thursday were pretty enthusiastic.  From the National Geographic:

"According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center, the sun began unleashing its fury on Wednesday at 5:10 a.m. ET, with an X2.2 flare. Just three hours later, the sun produced a second flare measuring a whopping X9.3—the most powerful on record since 2006.
The strongest solar flare measured in modern times happened in 2003, when scientists recorded a blast so powerful that it was off the charts at X28."

Except it was cloudy yesterday in Anchorage.  I went out several times to check.  I even found a USAIRnet site that has maps of current cloud cover.  Last night it showed Anchorage cloudy to Wasilla, but Palmer was showing clear.  Did I want to drive 45 miles for the chance of seeing the aurora?  If I didn't live in Alaska, probably I would have.  Today we had sun and clear skies.  Normally I'm content with clouds and rain at night and sun in the day.  But would the clear skies hold out to tonight?  It's 3:30pm now and the clouds are back.  But the cloud cover map from 2:53 shows us clear still.

At the site, the page is interactive and you can put the pointer on any of the circles and get more information.  Maybe these are just local thin clouds and a little further north it will be clear this evening.  These is supposed to be a pretty big solar storm.  (Is there any relationship between solar storms and hurricane intensity?*)


Today, as it gets dark in Europe, the Aurora Notify tweets are starting again.  Here's one from today:

Europe's turn for #aurora. Amazing show in Sweeden, Finland, Denmark, Scotland, Ireland, Iceland as the sun sets. Please let everyone know! pic.twitter.com/1rD6t7Q9k3

— Northern Lights Now (@NorthLightAlert) September 8, 2017

I'll check the skies tonight and this map and the reports as the roll in and decide if I'm going for a ride to the north.

*I couldn't just leave that question hanging.  With google, no one has an excuse not to find out the facts.  NASA has a great page on solar storms FAQs.  [Really, I need to be more careful.  It's got a page full of information, but I don't know enough to evaluate how good it is. It looks good to this solar novice.]

Question 14 is:

"What are some real-world examples of space weather impacts?"

It talks about power outages, satellite communication problems, and impacts on radio waves, but not on earth weather per se.  But if the satellites went down, tracking the hurricane would probably be more difficult.

Nature has a 2008 report of a study that suggests there is a connection, but not what I expected.  They tracked hurricane activity and solar activity and found with high solar intensity, weaker hurricanes.  But there seems to be a lop of skepticism about the link.

Aurora Over Our Backyard Deck

@AuroraNotify sends out tweets, so when there is action, I can watch it move from Scandinavia to Iceland to Canada to us in Alaska.

So when there were tweets about Fairbanks and then Anchorage, I went out on the deck to look.  At first there were very pale, but active spikes shooting above.  I went back in then came back out.  And again.  The fourth time the lights were rolling and dancing brightly overhead.  Even enough for my Canon Powershot.

The photos are just a faint sense of what was happening, and the swirling movement is part of the wonder.

And these catch the green glow, but as they swirled overhead they went bright white as well as green.

It's 1:30am.  I'll go out and take another look before I go to bed.

What do Kp numbers mean? Supposed To Be 5 Tonight

First I got this Tweet from AuroraNotify

Kp 5 forecast tonight, looking good!!! https://t.co/ADMTUxALm9 pic.twitter.com/5bKPH8m4rX

— AuroraNotify (@AuroraNotify) September 28, 2016

But I really didn't know what Kp 5 meant.  So I googled and got to Aurora Service:

The Kp number is a system of measuring aurora strength. It goes from 0 to 9 (0 being very weak, 9 being a major geomagnetic storm with strong auroras visible). So when your looking at the aurora forecast page, you want to see high Kp numbers. The higher the better. Anything above (and including) Kp5 is classed as a geomagnetic storm.

I haven't gone outside yet to check the clouds.  The last few times there were aurora notices, it was cloudy.  But it was pretty clear out late this afternoon.  So I'm going out to check.

I did go out and check about an hour ago.  It was dark enough to see a few stars, so it's clear enough.  But no lights.  Then I finished kneading a bread, made some phone calls, went through some old paperwork (AHRGGGGGGG!!), and now I'm back.

Here's a screenshot of the current map on Aurora Services.

From Aurora Services

So it should be a Kp 5 in (now) less than 18 minutes.  I'll go check again.

There are stars out.  I haven't been out looking at stars for a while now.  It's still not dark dark, and I didn't see any northern lights.  I'll post this now and update it later if I see anything.  It didn't feel cold at all without a coat, but when I checked it was 42˚F (5.5˚C), but there's absolutely no wind.