There is way too much sun today. Milli has retired to a north-facing window sill. I’d like to say it’s because she’s smart, but it’s actually because the neighbor’s cat has been hanging out in the shade over there. Maybe it’s a two-fer.
Hello everyone! I’m a meteorologist in the energy industry living in Surrey, B.C. At work, I forecast for the #energy industry in Eastern North America. On Mastodon, I toot about #weather, mostly #BCstorm, #WAwx, and #ORwx.
I recently moved in from Portland, Oregon and am excited to be here. Some #geology tidbits will be thrown in along with my thoughts on urban life, family life, and my #LDS faith.
I will work on configuring profile verification soon.
Milli came running in with a panicked look on her face. Hopefully nothing extreme going on in the yard in this wind. Had a couple power blinks earlier but holding so far.
She’s claimed 70% of the mousepad for Catsylvania.
Incredible northern lights displays were seen throughout the mid-latitudes Friday night into early Saturday. NOAA reported a Kp-Index of 9 for several hours and auroras were reported all the way down to Florida. At 10:00 Pacific Time Saturday, the Kp-Index was 8.
My view outside Kennewick, Washington was incredible. We started in Irrigon, Oregon but moved toward the Horse Heaven Hills to get out of light pollution. The show really ramped up around 23:00 when we were able to see pillars, ripples, and colors with the naked eye. Dim reds, greens, and purples could be seen without aid but popped out vividly in pictures.
This solar storm was produced by multiple solar flares issued from a very active sunspot region on the Sun. This sunspot region spans a distance 17 times the diameter of the Earth. The flares erupted material from the sun, which interacts with the Earth’s magnetic field to produce the northern (and southern) lights.
If you are in the northern third of the United States or Canada and missed the aurora on Friday night, you have another shot at seeing them on Saturday night. The forecast from the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center shows Kp values reaching 7 between 09:00 and 12:00 UTC tonight. This is around 02:00 to 05:00 PDT early Sunday.
This isn’t a strong as Friday night, but assuming the forecast is accurate the northern lights tonight will still provide good photography opportunities. Friday night was the first time since 2003 that Kp-9 values had been observed.
A few scattered clouds may be seen on the Palouse and in the Idaho Panhandle with low-level stratus along the Oregon Coast. Overall, the weather appears favorable for northern lights viewing except on the Oregon Coast.
Because Kp-values are forecast to be lower tonight, the further north you are the better. Washington and the Idaho Panhandle have better chances of seeing it than Oregon, but in the Pacific Northwest the best place to be will be British Columbia.
To maximize your chances of seeing the aurora, go to a dark location outside of town with a clear view to the north. The lights were bright enough to be faintly seen by the naked eye in several towns last night (including where I am in Hermiston), but don’t expect that tonight.
Keep an eye on observations and forecasts from the Space Weather Prediction Center to get an idea of what you might see. Observations can be found on their homepage. Note that a G1 storm corresponds to Kp-5, G2 is Kp-6, and so on up to G5 being Kp-9. G5/Kp-9 are the highest values on their respective scales.
The forecast is updated twice daily (at 12:30 and 00:30 UTC). That can be found at this link. To convert from UTC to Pacific Time, just subtract seven hours.
The featured image is of our family aurora watch party outside Kennewick, Washington. (Alisha Ingalls)
AltText:
Picture out a window facing southeast with a big blob of pink, pink tinted evergreen trees, and clockwise swoopy patterns fading to dull bluish night sky.
A very large sunspot issued five Earth-directed coronal mass ejections on Thursday, leading the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center to issue a watch for G4 geomagnetic storm conditions Friday afternoon to Sunday. This is the highest alert category issued by NOAA since 2005.
A G4 storm on NOAA’s scale corresponds to a Kp index value of 8. Under these conditions, the northern lights or aurora borealis could be seen on the northern horizon as far south as Northern California and Alabama. Aurorae may be seen near to directly overhead the Pacific Northwest and Great Lakes with much of Canada (especially Western Canada) likely to experience significant displays.
Having five coronal mass ejections back to back is a remarkably rare event. Readers may remember a double-ejection event in March 2024. Coronal mass ejections are eruptions of material from the Sun, typically originating from sunspots. The sunspot area that generated these ejections is also remarkable – it is estimated to span an area 16 times the diameter of the Earth.
This size puts it on par with estimates of the sunspot area that generated the Carrington Event. While aurorae are typically confined to polar regions, this one in 1859 was strong enough to generate them well into the tropics. Reports of northern lights came in from places like Cuba, Hawaii, and Colombia.
The impeding solar storm is not the same strength as the Carrington Event despite having been spawned by a sunspot area of similar size. The Sun will rotate the current sunspot area to face away from Earth in the coming days.
Coronal mass ejections also create radio blackouts and problems with electrical grids. A G5 storm in 2003 caused power outages in Sweden and damage to electrical infrastructure in South Africa. A large storm in 1989 knocked out power to nearly all of Quebec.
https://ingallswx.files.wordpress.com/2024/05/img_2612-1.png?w=984HRDPS modeled cloud cover for 00:00 PDT Saturday. (WeatherBell)The weather in the Northwestern United States and Western Canada looks ideal for aurora viewing on Friday night. A few scattered high clouds are possible, along with spots of low-level stratus in some coastal areas, but mostly clear skies are forecast. This is thanks to a ridge of high pressure in place over the region.
If you’re in Canada or the northern half of the United States, you can improve your chances of seeing the northern lights Friday night by finding a dark location outside of a city or town with a clear view to the north. Aurora displays are also possible Saturday night.
Note that there is a level of uncertainty with these kinds of forecasts, just like those predicting “normal” weather conditions. Observed Kp numbers aren’t likely to exactly match the NOAA forecast but they should be close. Some uncertainty is also inherent in the timing of the solar storm.
Sunspot frequency varies based on the 11-year long sunspot cycle. Sunspots are the origin of events like this, thus having more sunspots present increases the chances of a geomagnetic storm producing aurora above Earth’s mid-latitudes.
The Sun is currently near the peak of its current cycle. The Space Weather Prediction Center notes that over the course of April 2024 there was an average of 137 sunspots present on the Sun compared to less than 1 for several months during the last minimum in 2019-2020 and 146 in February 2014.
February 2014 represents the peak of the last sunspot cycle. The ongoing maximum is forecast to continue to early 2026 before declining toward the next minimum. While sunspots, geomagnetic storms, and mid-latitude aurora are more common during the peak of the sunspot cycle, occasional storms do strike the Earth around the minimum.
The featured image is of an aurora display in Estonia in 2022. (MaximBilovitskiy/Wikimedia)