Aurora watching turned into a thing when the largest Geomagnetic Storm in more than two decades gave us Earthlings a spectacular view of the power and majesty of our sun last night. Sadly, Rhode Island weather wasn’t as cooperative as it could have been, as it was very cloudy until about 3:30 AM this morning. But that didn’t stop my wife, daughter, and me from heading out at O’dark hundred to see the sights.
View to NW around 3:30 AM near Schartner Farms in Exeter RI
My wife and daughter can be seen on the shore of Barber Pond (POTA US-10548) around 4:00 AM enjoying the celestial display due west
This amazing global display of Auroral activity was spawned by the first few of a large series of Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs), impacting the Earth Friday afternoon. This drove the Kp level up to 9 and generated a G5 storm. While things tapered off a bit this morning, they are back up to a level 8, with several more CMEs due to impact us in the next day. Those with clear weather may be lucky enough to see more displays tonight.
By the way, viewing the event through recent smartphones will reveal more colors and details than can be seen by the naked eye. In the examples above, the Aurora was occurring over the West Coast thousands of miles away Had the sky been clear around 10 PM, the display would have been on top of us. Nevertheless we could still see the Aurora with our naked eyes, but mostly saw the whitish green colors of the shimmering curtains.
