One of the advantages of residing in the northern part of the United States is that we can sometimes see the aurora borealis.
And a beautiful scene happened last night, spectacularly captured by cameras at Greg Johnson’s Skunk Bay Weather site north of the Kitsap peninsula.
Here is a video about it for your viewing pleasure.
The event is related to a Mass Launch (CME) from the sun a few days ago, which reached Earth orbit last night. As a result, the geomagnetic activity index Kp increases to about 5 (see chart below). That’s usually high enough to get an aurora display around here. It’s still about 4.
The interaction of particles from the sun with the earth’s atmosphere and magnetic fields create “donut-shaped” aurora-like activity regions, as illustrated in the short-term forecast of what happened at night. via.
Frustrated about missing out on this celestial show?
Don’t worry, you might get another chance soon!
Another CME has occurred and NOAA’s latest Space Weather Forecast is for late tomorrow and Thursday.
Finally, we are now in Solar Cycle 25, which turns out to be more active than anticipated (see below). No wonder we’re getting some good screens from an increasingly active sun!
The red line is the prediction.
