Northern Lights?

[ForestGumpett]

From my understanding, they are all over the world

In the States, it’s the upper parts where it gets cold and is beautiful.

I’ve never seen them in person, but it’s on my bucket list.

Anyone seen them? If so, what part of the world are you in? Just curious, I think they would be beautiful!

 

[Sherlock77]

The further north you go there is a far better chance... They might be all over the world, but are far more likely to be seen the further north you are

Where I live in southern Alberta we get them a few times a year, northern Alberta gets them often, there is an area of the Northwest Territories of Canada where it's almost a daily thing... I suspect they are a very rare thing in most (if not all) of the continental United States except Alaska of course

I remember once driving at night from Edmonton to Grande Prairie (here in Alberta), and for at least an hour being entertained by the Northern Lights as we were driving, it was magical...

 

[ForestGumpett]

We are retiring this year, northern Wisconsin is an area we lived in for just a year and are seriously considering again. The people were great, and there is a chance of seeing the northern lights up there. We didn’t see them the one year, but liked enough up there to go back. The dry snow was fun, and the Nordic/Polish/German people that settled in the area made to die for food! Well, beer too, I’m not a drinker but my sweet husband said it was great beer.

Think the German pancakes with the lemon and powdered sugar was my favorite up there, Mmmmmmm

 

[Sherlock77]

We are retiring this year, northern Wisconsin is an area we lived in for just a year and are seriously considering again. The people were great, and there is a chance of seeing the northern lights up there. We didn’t see them the one year, but liked enough up there to go back. The dry snow was fun, and the Nordic/Polish/German people that settled in the area made to die for food! Well, beer too, I’m not a drinker but my sweet husband said it was great beer.

Think the German pancakes with the lemon and powdered sugar was my favorite up there, Mmmmmmm

There are the people (mainly photographers) who are in groups that monitor the northern lights, the best chance for them to happen on a certain night... As with all things related to the sky, a cloudy night is your enemy, and mother nature can be rather fickle sometimes... The evening of the northern lights display could be rainy, simply cloudy, etc...

 

[Progster]

I saw them once, when I was a kid in Northern England. It's very rare for them to be seen that far south, it is probably a once in a lifetime event.

 

[Major Tom]

I grew up next to the great lakes, (Superior and Michigan), I've seen them countless times every color imaginable. The way they move can only be sort of duplicated by a jellyfish swimming through the water. Sometimes it feels as though they are reaching down to grab you. Once there were 3 of us camping on a lake in Ely Minnesota, listening to the loons on the lake at dusk. As soon as the sun set we saw a pink line swerve through the sky like a snake, but in nearly a straight line. It eventually formed a doorway with a door, even had a doorknob! Then the sky just exploded with every color imaginable. You can see them any time of the year, but timing is crucial. They seem to appear right at dusk or around 2am to dawn.

 

[ForestGumpett]

@Major Tom ; Sir, thank you so much for the description of the lights, I’ve never seen them written about like that and didn’t even know they came in other colors! Your information is valuable to me, what an unexpected blessing!

Only spent a year up there and cannot wait to go back, when my better half said we could go back up there to retire I’ve been doing a happy dance ever since! Even my health was a lot better up there. DH last job brought us to the TX S. border for the last 4 years, OH MY!!! I’ve never felt heat/humidity like this in my life except for a sauna. I’m serious, grew up on the S/E coast but this place takes it to a whole different level of hot lol. My medical condition keeps me inside unless it’s below 70 (f) 21.1 (c) so heading north also opens the ability to live outside more again!

Woo Hoo, always good to hear such wonderful news and how pretty those lights are going to be!


Thank everyone that has participated in this thread, your all helping and teaching (((hug)))

 

[Mary Terry]

I saw them in Salt Lake City, Utah in the 1970s. It was an extremely rare event for them to be seen that far south. It was beautiful and really bizarre at the same time.

 

[Raggamuffin]

There's apps for space weather which shows sun spot activity and also the positioning of the northern lights across the globe. The solar maximum is under way and should peak around 2025.

The stronger the solar flares, the further south the northern lights will appear. There was actually a very strong CME (coronal mass ejection) that narrowly missed earth in 2012 - it was the most powerful one in 150 years and travelled at over 3000km/s and went straight through earth's orbit path - thankfully earth wasn't there was the time.

A similar strength CME hit earth in the late 19th century and was called the Carrington Event. The auroras were visible in unusual places due to the strength of this solar flare:

"Auroras were seen around the world, those in the northern hemisphere as far south as the Caribbean; those over the Rocky Mountains in the U.S. were so bright that the glow woke gold miners, who began preparing breakfast because they thought it was morning. People in the northeastern United States could read a newspaper by the aurora's light. The aurora was visible from the poles to low latitude areas such as south-central Mexico, Queensland, Cuba, Hawaii, southern Japan and China, and even at lower latitudes very close to the equator, such as in Colombia."

Whilst it's difficult to predict the sun's weather patterns, NASA believes this solar maximum peak in 2025 won't be as strong as previous ones. Peaking at around 117 sun spots (compared to an average of 179).

There is also an early warning system in place for large CME's as they can cause issues with electronics, and an X-class solar flare can cause radio blackouts. Another Carrington size CME could potentially cause billions of dollars worth of damage to nation's infrastructure - especially considering how reliant the world is on electricity.

As one NASA article rightly states "Admire the beauty but fear the beast". It's hard to estimate what impact a Carrington class CME would have on global power grids - with some doom mongers saying it would send us back to the dark ages, whilst other's implying it would cause widespread disruption and a significant cost, but it wouldn't be as cataclysmic as some newspapers or survivalists would have you believe.

I spent many years as a young teen fixated and terrified about "end of the world" scenarios. Even to this day, every time there's a powercut at night, I check to see if there's auroras outside - to ensure it wasn't caused by a CME.

Ed

 

[Au Naturel]

I occasionally saw them from Michigan when I was a kid. Now I live in SoCal and we are much too far south for them.

 

[Major Tom]

@Major Tom ; Sir, thank you so much for the description of the lights, I’ve never seen them written about like that and didn’t even know they came in other colors! Your information is valuable to me, what an unexpected blessing!

Only spent a year up there and cannot wait to go back, when my better half said we could go back up there to retire I’ve been doing a happy dance ever since! Even my health was a lot better up there. DH last job brought us to the TX S. border for the last 4 years, OH MY!!! I’ve never felt heat/humidity like this in my life except for a sauna. I’m serious, grew up on the S/E coast but this place takes it to a whole different level of hot lol. My medical condition keeps me inside unless it’s below 70 (f) 21.1 (c) so heading north also opens the ability to live outside more again!

Woo Hoo, always good to hear such wonderful news and how pretty those lights are going to be!


Thank everyone that has participated in this thread, your all helping and teaching (((hug)))

I also ended up moving to a hot place where you can barely even see the stars and the Northern Lights NEVER appear here. The heat really, really is oppressive. It averages about 100 degrees in the summer with 90%+ humidity.

I miss home, but things are too messed up in that country for me to want to go back.

I hope the info I provided helps you to see them some day. You'll definitely be able to see them in northern Wisconsin. Just keep your eye to the sky and maybe set alarms for early morning to go out and check. Between 2am-dawn. Also, there are apps and websites that track the aurora activity, so make sure to get one of those.

 

[FreeDiver]

We rarely ever see Auroras where I live. Sometimes you see them in the north every 2-3 years. But sometime around mid-march in 1989, we had a massive aurora that cover the whole sky all through the night and it lasted for 5 day in a row. It was so bright that you could hike through a forest and not need a flashlight. It was the coolest thing I've ever seen.