March 24, 2023

Have you seen the Northern Lights?

More here: "Stunning auroras dazzle as far south as Virginia, North Carolina and Arizona/A ‘severe’ geomagnetic storm spawned brilliant northern lights over large portions of the United States, Canada and Europe" (WaPo).

29 comments:

Kevin said...

Have you seen the Northern Lights?

Have you heard about the lonesome loser?

He's a loser but he still keeps on tryin'

John said...

They were awesome over Lake Ontario.

Eva Marie said...

One of my favorite drives from Los Angeles to Phoenix late at night and listening to Art Bell. The northern lights were visible far south that night - I didn’t see them. But he had listeners calling in from all over the United States and describing what they were seeing.

Big Mike said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Big Mike said...

Cloudy last night so we missed the show.

Michael K said...

We went to Alaska a couple of years ago, just before Denali Park closed for winter. I wanted to see the Aurora and it was fantastic. At 1 AM I got my wife up to see it. We were staying at a back country lodge that had not been there when I was there 20 years ago. Lots of wildlife but it was 100 miles into the park. Cold, too.

planetgeo said...

Not only are the Northern Lights ethereally gorgeous but also a reminder that we are so blessed to be on this incredible planet. Not only is it breathtakingly beautiful, full of companion sentient creatures, abundant food and resources, but also constructed in such a manner that our atmosphere protects us by acting as a deflector shield for harmful rays and a temperature regulator to keep us comfortable. Pretty amazing. Pretty, amazing.

A pity that so few people really appreciate it.

Quaestor said...

There was another spectacular display of the aurora borealis over Virginian skies in 1862. At the Battle of Fredricksburg, thousands of Union troops were pinned down by murderous Confederate artillery and rifle fire, forcing the Yankees to spend the freezing night of December 13-14 taking whatever meager shelter they could find on the long slope between the south bank of the Rappahannock and the Rebel positions on Marye's Heights. Their only solace was the beauty of the Northern Lights above them.

The 1862 aurora was near the close of a period of extreme solar magnetic storms, not unlike today. The storms peaked three years previously in the notorious Carrington Event of 1-2 September 1859, the most destructive magnetic storm yet recorded. Inducted currents in telegraph wires heated circuits and lead-acid battery banks to the molten state, burning many British General Post Office stations and American Western Union offices to the ground. A telegraph pole in New York City was seen to ignite like a giant torch. Another Carrington Event may be coming soon. Invest in heavy-duty surge suppressors and circuit breakers to protect your technology and appliances before it's too late.

Jupiter said...

We dodged a bullet.

Kay said...

Would love to see it one day.

DanTheMan said...

I've seen them. North of the Arctic Circle, in Norway. Unforgettable.

Jamie said...

They're on my list!

What a glorious time and place to be alive - I can expect that I will be (or have been) able to travel, safely and relatively affordably, to places where I can see the Northern Lights, whales, incredible mountains, rainbow-hued canyons, glaciers, historic works of art, prehistoric human sites...

Anthony said...

I only saw them once, in Wisconsin. In Madison actually. A friend and I were walking back from a bar (somewhere near the capitol, maybe the old White Horse Inn, to the house at the end of Gilman St.) on a cold winter's night and suddenly he stopped and said "Hey, look at that!" So we did. Very neat.

Scott Patton said...

Very occasionally (maybe 3 or 4 times) and extremely subtle in SW PA, except one time about 20+ years ago. It wasn't spectacular but it was impressive. A thousand times better than the other times.

David53 said...

Pictures or videos don't do them justice.

Lived near Fairbanks for 3 years, there's nothing like stepping outside, it's 20 below, dead calm, looking up into a cloudless sky and seeing them.

Darkisland said...

I've not seen them this far south but you immediately put me in mind of this:

The northern lights have seen queer sights
But the queerest they ever did see,
Was that night on the marge of Lake LeBarge
When I cremated Sam McGee.


John Henry

Darkisland said...

I've not seen them this far south but you immediately put me in mind of this:

The northern lights have seen queer sights
But the queerest they ever did see,
Was that night on the marge of Lake LeBarge
When I cremated Sam McGee.


John Henry

Inga said...

The northern lights were seen over Oconomowoc Lake last night.

exhelodrvr1 said...

Global warming?

Dude1394 said...

Damn climate change.

Christopher B said...

Dang! Overcast in Louisville so no chance here unless they last until the weekend.

I did catch them one time in Iowa by pure chance, coming back from working an overnight change window in the office.

Will Cate said...

Sadly not as far south as upstate SC

Lem Vibe Bandit said...

What's the deep meaning of Bob Ross's kicking off his 'Joy of Painting' show in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley?

I'm reading... when I should be painting.

Mikey NTH said...

Yes, I have seen the Northern Lights.

Smilin' Jack said...

Should be very impressive over Lake Mendota tonight if they’re still going on.

Jupiter said...

Only time I've seen the Northern lights was one Winter night in Vermont when I was on acid. I thought they were a hallucination. It looked like the whole sky had become a piano keyboard, which someone was playing. No music, though.

Narr said...

Those pix look like they went through the LGBTQ-ooo-ooo filter.

I've never seen the Lights myself, but will BOTL.

mongo said...

I saw them several times when we lived in Anchorage in the 1980s. What few ever mention- perhaps because it doesn’t always happen - is the sound that accompanies them. It is a little like the sound made by swishing lightsabers in Star Wars.

boatbuilder said...

I saw them once when I was at school in Maine. Muted but still very cool. Nothing like these pictures--very little color.

Still on the bucket list to see the full-blown lightshow.