Showy Aurora borealis possible tonight and tomorrow, Oct 30 & 31, 2021
I blew very hard to clear the clouds away and it worked! Haha But, no show. ☹
It will most likely hit when I give up.
Tomorrow is supposed to be really good, even into parts of the US according to this site:
We'll see.
Comments
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I wasn't up very late last night so no sign of them. I plan to set my alarm for midnight as that is supposed to be the optimal time for viewing here in my time zone. Its clear and cold tonight.
9.
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@LaurieLovesLearning @torey please, do post photos if you see it. I would love to see one in my life. We had a special clouds and special light. I think that had something to do with sun activity. This is what I saw.
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@jowitt.europe That is so beautiful!
You know, if I was you, I would try to go to Norway to see them. It sounds like they have a whole great industry built around it.
We used to have a camera, that when in a certain mode, could pick up on aspects of the lights that even we could not see. I don't know if what we have now has the same capabilities.
I could experiment and see.
I just hope they are out tonight. Last night was a bust. There was nothing.
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I got up briefly at midnight but didn't see a thing. :(
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An article on one of the national weather sites claimed the aurora would be visible even down here in central Missouri on the nights of Oct 30-31. I guess they were overly optimistic. It was beautifully clear and mild for star watching last night, but no aurora. I did see the aurora once down here--1993!--and I will never forget it. Hoping that just maybe tonight will be the second......
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@MaryRowe I hope so for you too!
Right now for us it is looking like partial cloud, rain, possible snow & windchill. I just hope the possible cloud (which is pretty much blanketing us right now) moves in such a way that the show is not blocked if it does happen.
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It is cold and clear again today, so I am hopeful for tonight.
I spoke to two other people today that also had not seen anything. One was up around midnight and went for a drive to a higher location, hoping to get a good sighting but no such luck. The other person was up around 2 AM. We are fairly spread out, the one person is about 100 km from me, so it wasn't just in my immediate location that they weren't seen.
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I wish I could see it! I don't think they will it where I am at unfortunately (Virginia).
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I'm seeing a faint glow 11:33 CST, but nothing even close to worth watching.
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@LaurieLovesLearning @torey do you see nordic lights every year, or only when the sun activity is exceptionally high?
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Same here. I was working the night shift in '93 and saw a pale version!
A friend who lives in Alaska says there's an app that gives helpful info.
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I happened to also be up at 3:30 and it was cloudy. Maybe next time. It's so disappointing when you have your hopes up and there is nothing, or you just missed it. There is an ebb & flow during the shows. It can be calm & suddenly erupt or the sky can dance & it all of a sudden it becomes "quiet."
@jowitt.europe It is easier to see the aurora through the colder months due to the sun setting earlier. Seeing them depends on solar activity, for sure. Where I am, it is not common to see them almost every night as we are not northern enough. I think Torey is a touch further north in latitude than I am, so perhaps she can see them more often than I.
The further north you go, the more often they are seen. People who live in the far northern parts of the provinces as well as in Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, Yukon & Alaska see them so often in the darker months that it is common place.
@Mary Linda Bittle, West Plains, Missouri I never thought of looking for an app. One of my regular links is from the Alaska Geophysical Institute. I am not sure why I didn't check it out this time.
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Nothing here last night and it was clear.
We don't see them every year but that could be that we just aren't up at the right time. I have seen them many times over the years. Most of the time they are white, yellow, green and blue but one year I was driving home after a meeting and caught the most spectacular red colours streaking across the sky with a few bands of the other colours mixed in.
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This is a pic my daughter took when she was on her way to work about 3 weeks ago. She gets up in the wee hours of the morning to go to work.
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@torey That lovely photo brings back the memory! The one time I did see them, that is what I saw, except that as I remember the band was more horizontal that time, and shimmering like magic. Thanks for posting the photo though. I was waiting and hoping last night again, but the sky was too overcast to see anything that might have been there.
@Mary Linda Bittle, West Plains, Missouri That surprise showing of the aurora down here that time was a wonder, wasn't it! I hadn't heard any reports that it was to be visible, but it came at the time of an annual meteor shower. I went out looking for meteors, and was stunned to see the aurora instead! Took a minute to realize what it was. Made me wonder what the Osage people who once lived in these parts thought on the rare occasions that they saw the Northern Lights. Glad there's some one else here who saw it and remembers. But after I wrote1993, I got to thinking....it might have been a year or two earlier, because I was still living at a rented place, hadn't bought my farm yet. Do you remember when it was for sure?
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@torey what a lovely picture! Thank you for posting it! I hope to see one in my life.
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I figured out why it got cloudy. 🤔Someone must have figured out that I blew them their way, so they blew them back.
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Not for sure the year, but I know I was working as a nurse's aide on the night shift at Bates County Memorial Hospital. It may have been a few years earlier than that as I think about it. I moved to the storeroom the year I was 30 or 31. So perhaps 1987 - 1989?
The Northern Lights are sometimes visible in unexpected places. This Civil War memory has always interested me.
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Out of curiosity, I looked out late last night and saw more of a glow than I did the two previous nights. But, it was just a glow, nothing more.
@Mary Linda Bittle, West Plains, Missouri Thanks for the link! It is an interesting story. I can only imagine what they would have looked like here at that time. Most likely like something I've never seen before, but would like to. I've seen light domes (either even color or stripes that come together at a central point above) and green, yellow & red (red only twice). The domes mean everything is happening directly overhead if I understand correctly and the entire sky can have color at that point (usually only green can be seen with the naked eye in my experience). I haven't yet seen white nor blue, nor the really huge & showy ribbons seen on most far north based pictures.
The Vikings claimed certain things about it too, that it was dead spirits. The Aboriginal people where I grew up said to never whistle when you see them as death to someone will come from it (to be fair, these were teens saying this, so I'm not sure if it is a common belief, but they sounded serious).
Some people claim that the lights have an eerie whistle. My understanding is that it is real, but few actually have the ability to hear it. I have always experienced silence when sighting the lights.
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@jowitt.europe I have read of light phenomenon like what your picture shows. I thought it was more than just reflecting light, but I don't remember what it's called. Maybe it is cloud iridescence, but I thought it actually had another name.
When I was looking for the name, I ran across a very interesting site on natural weather related phenomenon. I will post it in a separate thread. It was very interesting.
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I have been seeing the lights since 6 am. It is almost 7 now. They are bright, moving very quickly and are going in waves like I don't remember. There is a hint of red. Too bad the sun coming up will make them hard to see.
I tried my camera & video. I can't capture it.
@torey You might want to see if they are visible to you if you are up early enough.
Here is the aurora forecast link I wanted last time.
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@LaurieLovesLearning Lucky you! Its been pouring rain all night so no chance of me seeing anything.
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Ugh
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@Mary Linda Bittle, West Plains, Missouri I didn't know that the aurora has been as low as Virginia before. I wish I would have looked more carefully now when the flare hit.
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I bet there will be another opportunity one day!
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@Mary Linda Bittle, West Plains, Missouri & @Cornelius We can do our best to let you know if we find anything that might hit further south. The predictions are pretty good, but as you've seen in this thread, not always fully accurate.
The last link that I posted (the one with "cdn" in it is my favorite site to check if I remember.
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@LaurieLovesLearning Thank you so much! It is definitely a bucket list item for me to see them in person!
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@Cornelius You'd be welcome to come my way, but I would send you much further north to see more & better. 😄
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@LaurieLovesLearning Thank you! I will have to head up North after I graduate to see them!
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We've had so much overcast most nights lately it's been a challenge even to see the Moon.
No chance to see the recent eclipse here, though it happened so early in the Eastern US we would almost certainly have been in bed asleep anyway!
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