Aurora tonight! Geomagnetic storm in progress

[EricTheCat]

Just a heads up, there is a moderate geomagnetic storm in progress. I can confirm aurora is visible right now from Southern Minnesota.

From https://spaceweather.com/

HIGH LATITUDE AURORA WATCH: Today's surprise geomagnetic storm, described below, is subsiding a little, but it is far from over. Solar wind conditions favor continued storminess; currently, indices are fluctuating between category G1 (Minor) and G2 (Moderate). These storm levels could produce auroras in northern-tier US states after nightfall especially during the hours around local midnight.

 

[pmbug]

Unfortunately, I can affirm that if you look at the northern sky from southeast Texas, you can't see shit.

 

[EricTheCat]

Unfortunately, I can affirm that if you look at the northern sky from southeast Texas, you can't see shit.

It would take a pretty strong display to make it down there.

From what I can see here it is fairly bright but not all that dynamic. Hopefully it starts dancing a bit more. Maybe I should play some good tunes.

 

[EricTheCat]

Right after I posted that it got way better. I just came in to warm up. Right before that I could see aurora all the way to the South.

It turns out I picked the right couple days to take off to burn vacation time in order not to lose it at the end of the month.

Funny thing, I monitor the airplane "guard" frequency (121.5 Mhz AM) and once in a while I hear pilots mentioning it. Normally they use that frequency for issues.

 

[Ttazzman]

not gona be visible here in middle merica we are getting the firehose rain from the gulf

 

[searcher]

 

[pmbug]

I had posted this in the Catasptrophism thread earlier ...

Planet Earth is getting rocked by the biggest solar storm in decades.

Late Friday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration declared that the Earth was experiencing a G5, or "Extreme," geomagnetic storm. This is the first G5 storm to hit the planet since 2003.

NOAA warns several waves of flares will slam into the Earth over the next few hours and days, potentially disrupting communications and navigation, triggering power outages and damaging satellites. The 2003 event briefly knocked out power in part of Sweden and damaged electrical transformers in South Africa.

NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center says that this latest storm may induce auroras visible as far south as Northern California and Alabama.
...

 

[chieftain]

We had the australis version down here, blokes as far north as 27S saw the light show last night.

 

[chieftain]

Meant to be getting an encore tonight, nothing yet.

 

[EricTheCat]

Last night I could see aurora but the sky conditions were not as good and the aurora was not nearly as vivid as the night before. I ended up sleeping so I'm not sure how much better it got.

The night before last was spectacular.

 

[chieftain]

Last night was a fizzer, activity went to zero.

 

[searcher]

STRONG GEOMAGNETIC STORM PREDICTED: Two CMEs are heading for Earth, due to arrive on Dec. 31-Jan. 1. The one-two punch to Earth's magnetic field could spark a strong G3-class geomagnetic storm with mid-latitude auroras in the USA and Europe. Full story @ Spaceweather.com.

 

[searcher]