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Merged Here comes another Aurora Borealis

So, we had a G1 storm yesterday, visible north of the US mostly, maybe the 55th parallel.

From spaceweather.com
ANOTHER INCOMING CME: As Earth's magnetic field reverberates from one CME strike, a second more potent CME is on the way. It was propelled in our direction by sunspot AR1748, which unleashed an M3-class solar flare on May 17th (0858 UT). Although this is not the strongest flare we've seen from AR1748, it could be the most geoeffective; the sunspot was almost-squarely facing Earth when the blast occurred. NOAA forecasters estimate a 75% chance of polar geomagnetic storms when the cloud arrives.
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A G2 storm is expected. Of course, for whatever reason, predicting space weather is even less reliable that predicting Earth weather so it's never a certainty. A G2 storm will create an aurora that borders on being visible from my living room window in Bellevue, a Seattle burb. Seattle is at Geomagnetic latitude 54 which differs from simple latitude, for reasons I've not taken the time to learn. You can see what your GML is here.


Here's the current alert
Space Weather Message Code: WATA30
Serial Number: 105
Issue Time: 2013 May 17 2124 UTC

WATCH: Geomagnetic Storm Category G2 Predicted
Highest Storm Level Predicted by Day:
May 18: None (Below G1) May 19: G2 (Moderate) May 20: None (Below G1)
THIS SUPERSEDES ANY/ALL PRIOR WATCHES IN EFFECT
Potential Impacts: Area of impact primarily poleward of 55 degrees Geomagnetic Latitude.
Induced Currents - Power grid fluctuations can occur. High-latitude power systems may experience voltage alarms.
Spacecraft - Satellite orientation irregularities may occur; increased drag on low Earth-orbit satellites is possible.
Radio - HF (high frequency) radio propagation can fade at higher latitudes.
Aurora - Aurora may be seen as low as New York to Wisconsin to Washington state.
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Re the timing: The CME impact is due as soon as 6-7 hours from now or as late as 30 hours from now. X flares travel faster and arrive sooner (24-48 hours from the ejection), M flares a little slower (48-72 hours from the ejection). The incoming flare left the Sun 2013/05/17 08:43 Universal time(Greenwich mean time).
 
Thanks for bumping the thread. :D

Naturally it's raining here and will be when the CME arrives tomorrow. :(
 
Looks like the CME from the Jan 7 flare has arrived. There's a sudden impulse in ACE spacecraft's measuments:
xDkmSTP.png


The initial magnetic configuration of the CME does not look very promising for a strong geomagnetic storm or auroras: the Bz-component is near zero. But later on it may very well dip to south (negative).

ACE realtime measurements here: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ace/MAG_SWEPAM_6h.html
 
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As Spin0 said, sudden impulse just hit, the storm is beginning to build. Daytime and clouds here. :(
 
macdoc said:
3 days of clear and bitterly cold and it arrives when it breaks and gets cloudy :(
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Sucks to be you, then. Also bitterly cold here, but we finally have a break in the clouds for exactly one day. I've been going out to look maybe 5 minutes at a time. So far, only one, faint flash of light streaked across the sky.

I am underwhelmed so far....and cold.
 
G-3 canceled.
Doesn't matter to me as the clouds increased as soon as I got my hopes up. I am the opposite of a cloud buster!
 
That massive sunspot made it back around the sun, picked up a new number, and is spitting out M class flares every few hours. Maybe...maybe.
 
She's glowing again, storm level 6 right now. We have clear skies off and on but it needs to get to 7 for it to be visible in Seattle. I'm keeping an eye out.
 
I've seen some very fine auroras over the years, but few recently. Here in Vermont it's always cloudy. I suspect sometimes that there's an aurora back there somewhere, but all we ever see is clouds. This year I think the clouds are being obscured by more clouds.
 
The same sunspot is coming around for the third time! Third time's the charm?
 
I tried driving from OKC to Yellowknife and the NW Territories this late August and September, our goal was to see the aurora. The trip was a disaster, and I found out missing court here by 24 hours, a misdemeanor I had the charges dropped on, had me banned from Canada for ten years now. After a few days in Glacier National Park, it was a rude stop in the route we had planned along the rockies. The US border patrol loves to talk smack on the Canadians, at least they offered me moral support on my shameful return :( I thought I'd never see them. Then the moment we cross back onto US soil our back axle starts making a funny sound. We end up in Browning getting dicked around by the Blackfoot mechanic for 3 days, at least we got our fill of Glacier National Park in the mean time.

The irony was, talking to my girlfriend at the time on the phone while camping on the outskirts of Browning all night long, after about 5 hours on the phone I realized the city lights I was looking at were not in the correct direction at all. It was 4:30 am and I realized what looked like a stadium over the hill was shifting in tiny bands. I couldn't believe it, the ugly fluorescent yellow green light I thought was light pollution for an hour was the aurora. It was weak, but I saw it. And 20 minutes later it was gone.

Hopefully I get to fly or get to Scandinavia sooner than 2024. I was in Siberia in Jan 2008 and thought for sure I'd see them, but Lake Baikal was too far south apparently or I was unlucky.

We chased the aurora reports up and down the Dakotas for a week, finally ending up in the Lake of the Woods in Minnesota on a beach overlooking the north with a body of water the size of a small sea, but all we saw was a very dim haze we thought was the other side of the lake. Come morning, there was no other side, the thing looked like the ocean. Evidently that feint haze was the aurora. Someday I'll get the classic experience and see the Rainbow Bridge to Valhalla. :)
 
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Soapy Sam said:
No aurorae, but JupiterVenus and the Moon looked very pretty before dawn today.
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FTFY!
http://spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=26&month=02&year=2014
MORNING CONJUNCTION AND ECLIPSE: This morning, Venus and the crescent Moon converged for a beautiful sunrise conjunction. In some places, the conjunction was so tight that the Moon actually eclipsed Venus. Ravindra Aradhya sends this picture from Bangalore, India, taken moments before Venus disappeared behind the lunar limb:
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