There has been a significant solar storm, and particles have reached the Earth's orbit.
Several individuals in the Pacific Northwest have already seen auroral displays, such as my colleagues at the National Weather Service forecast office at Sand Point (see below)
The critical Kp index is now 8.5 (see below), which is normally a guarantee of a decent aurora for our region--if there are no clouds.
But this is a problem....clouds.
As shown by the latest satellite image, a substantial band (red arrow) is moving north from Oregon. A broken band is moving into western Washington now (purple arrow), but may clear the central Sound between 9 and 10 PM. Eastern Washington is good right now...bet some of you are seeing it.
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Seen in University Place at about 6pm.
ReplyDeleteWe could see them naked eye from the front porch in light polluted Ballard, even through not insignificant cloud cover!
ReplyDeleteThe smart phone pics on long exposure dark mode revealed even more reds and greens. Space weather.com has an excellent gallery people are contributing to from around the globe. They are seeing it as far south as Texas and Alabama! Oh if only the clouds would drift away!
Haarp shenanigans
ReplyDeleteIt was a brief show here in Kirkland, maybe from 5-6PM (I guess one good thing about standard time!) The clouds rolled in shortly thereafter, and though the clouds themsleves were thin enough to not impede viewing, you could tell that the light pollution reflecting on them from below was too strong to see anything
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