Sadly, fully clouded over in the NE, but right now, auroras are at STORM level, and not expected to peak for several more hours. If you have clear dark skies, a great night to get out and look north.
Just Google “Aurora forecast” and you can find something for your area.
Also not a bad idea to unplug electronics tonight; biggest solar alert in 20 years; that one wiped out power grids in South Africa.
We were waiting for 2am because local forecasts said that was our best chance for visibility in our area. But suddenly at 10:30pm our graduating senior jumped spritedly from their gaming and ran outside. So many things were surprising about that whole thing, that Mr Papy and I followed immediately (leaving the poor littles doing their food and litter box cat chores later than usual due to Doctor Who, to emerge from the basement, wondering if we’d all been snatched).
Anyway, the Gen Z system activated and alerted all the rest of us that it was visible NOW!
I never thought I would see the Northern Lights in person, in my lifetime. So thankful! Truly amazing.
We are still keeping tabs, peeking out periodically.
Photos courtesy of Mr Papy
I am SO jealous! Only a light drizzle here now, but total cloud cover for 100+ miles.
Glad you got to see it. Pics are great!
That’s amazing to see. IDK if it was supposed to be visible in NY but it’s raining so that’s that.
Rained here last night, saw nothing. But we normally have star filled dark sky
Supposed to go throughout the weekend as solar flares intensify.
Yeah, without the clouds, would have been easy to see from the NYC area (but you have to get a little bit away from the bright lights).
Might have a chance tonight, if the clouds hold off. Have to see what it’s looking like when sunset gets closer. I have a spot picked out in Harriman State Park, north of the lights with a good view to the north, so may head there about 8:00 or so.
The site I use to track aurora activity (https://cdn.softservenews.com/) had to recalibrate one of their charts for intensity; used to go to 8; now it goes to 10 (obviously, they should have made it go to 11…)
Actually right after I wrote this, I went outside and there were plenty of gaps in the clouds with stars visible but nothing.
Even though this is NYC, it does get pretty dark around here so I was surprised to see nada.
I checked again around 2AM before I went to bed and less clouds and still nothing.
I bet this would have been nice in the Catskills, where my MIL has a summer home. She’s home with us at the moment so no idea how it was up there.
I heard clearly visible in the Poconos. We have another chance tonight I think
Looking a bit shaky for tonight; big front moving in, looks like the rain will get here about the time it gets good and dark; even if it’s late, probably too many clouds in front of the rain; it’s already mostly cloudy here. Not sure if I’ll take the drive or not.
But tomorrow looks possible; peak aurora is predicted after the clouds are predicted to leave. Of course, bad enough to make plans on one questionable prediction, but aurora predictions are even worse than weather ones. But I guess we’ll see.
Thanks for the photos @papy we did not get up last night to view, but should tonight, thanks to you.
A very favorite memory, I think now about 25 years ago is going to the Greenville Maine Seaplane Splash-in. Called a Fly-in at the time. We arrived and parked the amphibious airplane just off the runway on the grass. While others set up tents in the woods, I and my youngest son 14 at the time, slept under the stars, our only cover the wings of the Lake Buccaneer.
Little did we know, we were in for the best show on earth.
Just after midnight, the lights began, we sprung, well we scrambled out of our sleeping bags and sat in the folding chairs we brought along. Three or more hours, what a show.
I play this night with him over and over again in my mind quite often.
The next day we took off and explored remote parts of Main lakes in the region. We returned when we found bear tracks on a beach we landed on. The dinner that night was a Moose Roast. Think pig roast with a full Moose, cooked and placed on a table in the dinning cabin for carving and enjoyed by many.
The second night the encore was not quite as dramatic, but it helped to taper off the adventure on our trip home the next day to reality.
And we are cloud covered again, grrr
Clouds are a bummer, but real-time reports showing that the activity is nothing like last night, so the clouds saved me from driving 40 minutes to not see anything.
But we’re not even to the peak of this solar cycle; we’ll get some more chances.
On the night of December 27, 2018, an electrical fault in voltage-monitoring equipment triggered a fire in the A…
](Astoria Borealis - Wikipedia)
We have done quite a bit of work on large energy generating stations. As large as 720 to over 1,000 megawatts (MW). All in North, Central and South America, both natural gas and LNG.
The items most feared would be the generation of ammonia used in the generation process and the transformers used in the transmission process. Safeguards are in place to mitigate damage should a failure occur.
I shall not turn this political however, from a scientific and technical view I found the “Aftermath” laughable.
New York City Councilmember Costa Constantinides used the incident as an example of why New York should no longer rely on fossil fuels when touting a new bill studying the closure of the city’s gas-fired power plants.
Does this politician not know that transformers are used in all forms of electricity generation and distribution?
We should remember it is Wikipedia.
Said the guy that runs a electric smart car for the company vehicle. That burns natural gas, diesel, nuclear energy, solar and coal to recharge.
