Watch out! The sun's pitching protons at Earth again. A coronal mass ejection from a couple days ago arrived at the planet this afternoon and fired up a strong (G3) geomagnetic storm. Folks living in Russia and the Scandinavian countries undoubtedly saw a fine aurora blow up in the sky while it was still daylight here in the U.S.
It's possible the storm, which had been predicted to peak between 10 p.m. and 1 a.m. CDT, April 23-24, may be subsiding. Or it may come around and give us another wallop. Either way, there's a good chance the observers in the northern U.S. and Canada will see the red and green dancers starting as soon as late twilight, around around 9:30 p.m. local time.
If it's clear, face north and look for a low arc or possibly rays in the lower half of the northern sky. I'll be checking back and posting updates. Although skies are predicted to be partly to mostly cloudy for the Duluth area, the forecast looks great for Crex Meadows , the Minong, Wisconsin, area, north-central and northeastern Wisconsin and parts of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, including Houghton-Hancock . The links will take you to a website that tracks clouds. The more dark blue squares you see between 21:00 (9 p.m.) and 3 a.m. the better!
I just returned from north of Houghton (with a perfect forecast for Sunday night) to Duluth, which proves that nature loves to visit irony on hapless humans like myself. I'll probably travel south a bit into Wisconsin in hopes of finding a hole in the clouds.
Remember that you can use any recent iteration of Android or iPhone to capture photos of the aurora even if you don't own a tripod or smartphone adapter. Aim your iPhone at the aurora while holding it as still as you can with two hands. When you tap the red "button," it will take a stabilized, 3-second exposure of the scene. Trust me, it works!
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To get alerts when the aurora shows up in your neck of the woods, download Aurora Forecast & Alerts for iPhone ( Android ). Good luck!
The Trust Project
