It might be a little cliche, but I have a bucket list and one of the listings is “see the aurora borealis with my own eyes.”
How can I accomplish this? Where do I need to stay? How far do I need to travel? I live in the NW United States at the moment.
It doesn’t need to be directly overhead, but I also don’t want it to be a disappointing smudge of wavy light in the distance.
I also live in the PNW and I’ve seen it many times. It helps to be away from city lights but if it’s a strong enough aurora, it can be seen even in a city. Monitor this website for the current extent of auroral activity:
When I was in Anchorage a few years back I was able to see it quite clearly. Also the trip to Alaska is in and of itself worth being on your bucket list…
The ice mists, the green mountains and valleys interspaced with differing layers of fog, the moose that walked into our yard to within 20 yards of us…all worth seeing.
There are three components involved: Timing, location, and luck. For timing, your best bet in broad strokes will be during the maximum of the solar cycle, which fortunately we’re currently approaching. On a finer scale, space weather websites like the one standingwave linked can give you a couple of days of warning on when auroras are likely.
For location, the northern US is far enough north. You also want to get as far away from city lights as you can, and of course you also need clear skies. If there are any semi-desert areas within a few hours of you, those are probably a good candidate.
And of course, there’s never any guarantee, which is where luck comes in. The way to beat that is to make sure you have many opportunities. If you see an aurora forecast on space weather websites, and drive out to a clear, dark location, and don’t see it, don’t give up. Try again the next time, and the time after that, and so on.
One other thing that can help: Look up your local astronomy club, and find out if they have any sort of alert system to tell you about actual (as opposed to potential) auroras visible from your area. Around here, for instance, we have a calling tree, where if you see an aurora, you call other folks, and they call yet more folks, and so on. Then you just have to be willing to be woken up by a phone call in the middle of the night and drive out to the middle of nowhere on a whim (trust me, it’s worth it).
monitor the activity at the site given. a recent high activity was visible midway in the upper tier of states.
Washington state is a fair location.
We are going into a period of increasing solar activity which causes the aurora. Winters are good both for higher activity and clearer skies.
You can also get on a mailing list from www.spaceweather.com which will notify you well ahead of time that conditions indicate upcoming solar flares - which cause the auroras.
Here’s some info from recent posts of mine in another thread.
There have only been a few sightings reported here. http://www.spacew.com/www/auroras.php
Not midsummer for Alaska, obviously.
Register then subscribe to email alerts directly from the NOAA here. https://pss.swpc.noaa.gov/
The product category you want is “Geomagnetic Storm Products”. The emails can be routed to your cell phone as text messages, of course.
I’m having a hard time interpreting what the map at that site means. Obviously the yellow-orange part is more intense than the blue, but does the yellow mean “definite aurora” and blue mean “possible aurora”?
Another question for the group … in the most intense auroral regions, is there an aurora most nights (that is, during the time of year when it is mostly night)? For example, if I spend a week in Anchorage, Alaska, sometime between October and March, and the weather is fair, can I be pretty sure of seeing an aurora, or is it still hit and miss?
It is hit and miss. I grew up in Fairbanks. Sometimes you’ll have auroras all the time, sometimes you’ll go a whole winter without seeing one.
The other thing is, in the summer the skies are light for 24 hours, so you can’t see the aurora. In the winter, it’s cold, so you’re inside. If you don’t have friends who will call to wake you up in the middle of the night to see the aurora, you’re going to miss a lot of them.
Winnipeg, Manitoba is a close hot spot
Auroras happen pretty much every night, in a ring of locations around the magnetic poles. Sometimes the ring is larger than others, and sometimes the ring is broader than others. If the ring is large enough, sometimes it even extends as far south as Florida, but that means that it’s probably not over Alaska at that time (Alaska would be in the “doughnut hole”).
And, of course, even if there’s an aurora up there, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s visible. There could be too much light pollution, or clouds in the way, or whatever.
On a clear night in the fall or winter anywhere north of the Arctic Circle, you’re almost guaranteed to see at least a brief display of the aurora. I caught some nice green curtains and wispy clouds when I visited friends in Kiruna, Sweden in January 2002. Seeing the aurora wasn’t the sole purpose of my visit, but it certainly was a wonderful bonus! That alone made the 19-hour train trip from Stockholm worth it.
Many northern locations have special aurora train tours, including the Alaska Railroad. Might be worth looking into. That way you’ll have amazing views but still be warm.
Look up.
I mean, that’s the biggest thing. I’m in Northern Illinois, and there have been auroras here a bunch of times. Just keep an eye on something like spaceweather.com. When I say, “keep an eye on,” I mean, “get in the habit of obsessively checking every damn day.” Then, if there’s been there’s a coronal mass ejection or solar wind stream or geomagnetic storm or something, watch the above-linked sites closely–every hour or two, maybe.
I saw them in 2006 while driving on I-90 between Elgin and Rockford, IL. I was also able to view them with someone else shortly afterwards in a lit parking lot in Rockford. It’s all about knowing when to look.