Northern Lights (aurora borealis)

Has anyone here seen them? That's one sight I hope to see during my lifetime. Last year and apparently others, they were seen even here in Georgia. I've now signed up where they send aurora alerts (when they're likely to be seen)then you can go here http://www.spacew.com/www/aurora.html to see what the forecast is (scroll down).

Apparently tonite they were seen in Upper Michigan, North Dakota and others. Can't wait till they get here, I'll be waiting!

I am with you, Violabird, that would be sight I would love to see. I bet Weezie has seen them many a time. Maybe she could even give us a virtual tour.

I saw them one time here in Oklahoma, when we were coming home late one night. They had been forecast, so I was looking for them. I'm sorry to say that this far south, they're nothing to write home about. You could see a little bit of blue, but it really just looked like a stadium all lit up in the distance. It was just a brighter place in the sky. We live out in the country, you probably couldn't see anything at all if you were in town. I was hoping for some colors, but I guess we were lucky to see anything!

I've always said that is the one thing I want to see before I die. Pictures are awesome, but oh to be able to see it in person!

We see them several times a year here. Sometimes they are more outstanding and noticable than others. They are truly something to see. Lights dancing around in the sky. I haven't been outside since it got dark, but I'll go take a look and let you know. I wish they came across on film. I've tried to take photos, but they don't turn out.

Update: I couldn't see them. All I can see is a glow to the north. I think maybe I was too late.

This message was edited Thursday, May 29th 1:47 AM

I saw them once when I was a little girl. It was VERY early in the morning and we were headed off for a vacation at the Jersey shore. It was beautiful - 40 years worth of not forgetting attest to that!

JoanJ, as I was surfing thru some of those links of picture sights and forums, I remember they were giving tips as to how to photograph them.

The neat thing about this sight is that they show you the intensity of the lights, glow or dancin. Basically, listen for solar flares announcements, the bigger, the better.

I'm going to have to to check that site out. I'd love to know in advance when they are going to happen. Usually we just see them by chance. I think you must have to have some special lens or to photograph them. I've not been able to do it with my camera. I couldn't get a decent picture of the lunar eclipse either.

Thats one thing we never get tired of watching here in the "Great White North". We get many great shows during the winter. No show in the summer, due to the midnight sun.
Its light enough here at midnight to read outside, at this time.
..............................Dennis.......................

I've always longed to see this phenomenon, but the only times I've been far enough north have been in the summertime :(

I saw them once while living in Clarence,N.Y. I'm sure not the best of shows but thrilling to me none the less. Also..would you believe..a tiny show while living on St. George Is. Fl.

I grew up in the middle of Sweden, and in the winter we would see it quite freqently. They are amazing and actually come in different colors. The most common is green running across the sky. But the most amazing one was orange and red. It was huge round forms and it made me think that the aliens where coming. I did take some photos of it, but I'm going to have to dig through some old boxes to find them, and then find a scanner since mine is broken.
I have never seen it here in GA.

In 1965 I had a small parish in Petersburg, Alaska. It was Easter eve, 11pm. The congregation was gathering for the midnight celebration and the sky was filled with shimmering curtains of pink, lavender, and white curtains of light. It was, to use a teen word, awesome. We watched for over half an hour before entering the church for the liturgy. What a prelude!

You know, I had been using the 'Alaska' site till I saw that it was closed for the summer, so I went to the one above. This one has a FREE mailing list and lots of links to pictures, here http://www.gi.alaska.edu/predict.php3 looks like you can still sign up (sorry about that!)

Paintedlady, if there is any way you run across them before Saturday, please stick them in your pocket!!!

tiG, look at these http://climate.gi.alaska.edu/Curtis/curtis.html

Joan, this is for you http://www.geo.mtu.edu/weather/aurora/images/aurora/jan.curtis/

This message was edited Friday, May 30th 12:14 AM

Thanks violabird. I'm going to study that page you linked to and see if I can figure out how to do it. Then I need to study my camera manual and see how to do it.

vi, I've always imagined there is a place in heaven that looks like this.

Yup, heaven it must be!
I can never get enough of these photos, it's like a dream world!

Some years ago I spent a winter north of Franconia Notch in New Hampshire. On frigid February nights I would wander out under the starscape and marvel at the shifting and flowing glows of the Northern Lights.

Something else:

My wife has been to Antarctica a couple times and describes the Aurora Australis ~~~ the Southern Lights ~~~ with a faraway look in her eye as she slips into a dream of returning to the most remote place on Earth (which she will in October).

Here is a photo of them taken at the Geographical South Pole.

Adam.

Photo

Great shots all of them,I love the Northern lights!have seen them hundreds of times in Mi.they are never the same!
here is a forecasting spot,http://www.sec.noaa.gov/pmap/index.html

The first time I saw the Northern Lights, I was 16 years old, alone in the Highlands in Scotland, on top of a mountain, and studying for my upcoming final school exams. I got the fright of my life and like brave men do, I got the hell outa there. I ran down the mountain (which had taken 4 hours to climb), and kept running till I got to the next village. I hammered on the door of the hotel shouting and bawling that a war must have broken out and we should all get down into the cellar.
The hotel owner didn't think it was very funny being woken at 3 a.m, but explained that it was the Aurora, and they happen there all the time.
Man!!!! Did I feel like a prune!!!
I had to get back up to where my tent was, after he had given me a couple of the drinks for which Scotland is famous ;-), and needless to say, I ended up sleeping on the heather.
Since then I've seen the lights about 15-16 times, and it never ceases to amaze me what nature, can do. A truly wondrous sight.

BTW, the Southern lights are an exact copy of the Northern lights, and vice-versa.

I hope I see them soon again and, by the way, I don't run away any more :-D


Wintermoor

Update for you lucky ones!

"A large solar flare occurred today on the East limb of the sun. The shock from this event will intercept Earth producing auroral activity on the night of the 18/19th of June. It will not be high activity, since most of the the energy in the flare was directed away from Earth. In the meantime, the Earth will intercept a fast/slow interaction region in the solar wind very late on the 16th UT. This means that auroral activity on the evenings of the 16-19 should be visible from the northern boundary states of the USA and of course Canada, and southern Scandinavia. The source of the flare is a very active region that will face the Earth within the next week. The probability for another flare of this magnitude is high. Such a flare will produce aurora much farther equatorward if it occurs when
the region is facing Earth. We will of course send out an alert if such a flare occurs."

I was in Alaska in February '98 and was lucky enough to see the lights every night we were there. Now, on the downside, it was quite cold at North Pole AK, and we were doing nearly round-the-clock employee meetings, so a lot of our northern light viewing was in the wee hours of the morning, driving back to the hotel to crash for a few hours before starting all over again :) But it was worth it - going to Alaska is definitely a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and I'm glad I got to go.

I occasionally saw the Northern Lights when I was a kid in NE Ohio. My best experience was a few years ago in the UP of Michigan in August. I was on vacation with some friends at Lake Superior. One night we went out to the beach to look at the Perseid meteor showers. As our eyes became accustomed to the darkness we realized the sky was doing some very strange things. It finally dawned on us that it was the Northern Lights! There were no colors but the movements of the lights were incredible and as a bonus we got to watch the meteors shooting through this fantastic light show! UNFORGETTABLE!!!

Violabird...love this thread! I never knew you could see them in the states. When I was in Alaska, it was July and barely got dark, so I did not get to see any.

Does anyone know if they can be seen here in Washington State (The Olympic Peninsula) Oh, how I'd love to see them!!!

I'm sure going to be looking out tonight for them...if the much needed rain stops. It does not get really dark now until around 10pm...is there any special time of the night to look for them?

thanks for all the great info...WaWild1

I have always wanted to see northern lights before I die, (and fireflies), maybe someday!!!!!

Me too Carena. I've been lucky enough to see fireflies and glowworms now (what a treat!), so just the lights to go :)

I guess we just take some things for granted, like fireflies :) It is a lot of fun to sit outside at dusk and watch them flit around (of couse, you have to be slathered with skeeter repellant, lolol...)

oh, someday, someday, the closest I've been to seeing fireflies is in the pirates of the carribean ride at disneyland! WaWild, once every few years the lights come down this far, but it always happens on an overcast night so we don't get to see them..

WaWild1, you're welcome! If you can catch some of those links, you'll learn more and more, and those photos! One of the links has a forum to ask questions.

And I agree, I love DG for all the sharing we get to do! Am firmly convinced that the gardeners are the very best people--we know how to nurture!

I wish you could all come here when we're having a good display of "the lights" !! We live about 10 miles from the nearest town (pop. about 12,000) so it's good and dark out here! One night a couple of years ago they seemed to be just over the tree tops and *very* active, swirling everywhere, really amazing (even to someone who sees them a lot). Years ago in lower Michigan, near Cadillac - while at a drive-in movie - I saw an incredible technicolor display of northern lights, red, green, white, that I've never seen since (much more interesting than the movie was).

And geez, Carena, you haven't had a chance to see fireflies?? I take them so for granted, but really, they ARE incredible! The best firefly show I ever saw was years ago when I went to visit a friend in Vermont - we looked out her trailer window, and thanks to some weird humidity condition or something the firefly lights looked absolutely huge - it was actually spooky. So many natural wonders, small and large!!

Is it even remotely possible to have seen these lights in Louisiana?
I ask because some years ago, driving home from work late one night (dark highway) there was such beautiful colored lights dancing in the sky that I pulled over to watch. It lasted for a long time. It was all around, brightest in the southern sky, because there are no big towns south of the highway.

Never seen it before, never seen anything like it since. No one else seems to have seen it. I always have refered to it as the "light show by God".
What you guys are describing sounds something like what I saw. But it can't be, can it?

YES! That's what I was talking about--it's a freak thing but it's happened in the last 2 years at least, here in the south. That's why I'm watchin!

you better call me next time you see something!!!

Having seen the Northern Lights many times in the 30 years I've lived in Alaska, one incident is vivid in my mind. It was back in the winter of 1990. I had spent a particularly difficult spring and summer. A delightful man I had share 11 years with died in his small airplane in late March, and I was living in our little cabin alone, hardly feeling any enthusiasm for anything.

On this particular night, I had stoked the woodstove a bit too much, and to escape the heat, I stepped outside. The sky was clear, and as I looked up, between the tall trees I could see the Northern Lights. It gave me such pleasure and comfort that I climbed up onto the hood of my old banana yellow LTD station wagon, stretched out with my hands behind my head and enjoyed God's whimsy for about half an hour. There is nothing like the magic of nature to put things in perspective.

what a touching story, and very true, nature's a humbling thing!

I'd just love to see those lights

Well, violabird, I'm gonna have to be watching too. I think I'm quite a bit further south than you, but heck, if there is even a chance ... I sure would like to see another "Light Show by God" =)

Thinking back, this must have happened in the winter of '89-90, so it was more than a few years ago! I still remember it clearly, blues, greens, yellows and reds, just dancing around in the sky. Balls of it, rolling, streaks of it, streaming, backlighting the few thin clouds. I always just assumed that what I saw was some bizarre form of lightning, or something. It never occurred to me until reading this that it might be "Northern Lights", so far South.

Weezingreens, that is a beautiful story. I wonder if we were watching the same light show, stretched out on the hoods of our cars ... lol

Cheri'

Try my hyper link above and click on north hemisphere movie,it will show you pretty much up to the minute activity

rootdoctor - I'm not even on the map! lol

Not much hope for me.

Cheri'