By Grace Muller, AccuWeather.com Staff Writer
October 8, 2012; 7:45PM,EDT
- Lucky night owls saw the Northern Lights on Sunday night in the Great Lakes and in Canada.
Here's a link for warnings about space weather put out by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) forecasting coming auroras:
- Good space conditions for an aurora are hard to forecast. Other than analyzing satellite information, looking at the strength of the solar wind and proton density can help indicate the strength a geomagnetic storm. The stronger the geomagnetic storm, the more likely viewers would be able to see the Northern Lights farther south than usual.
The most difficult part of forecasting whether a CME (coronal mass ejection) will have an impact on the Earth is the arrival time. However, AccuWeather.com Astronomy blogger Mark Paquette said that a rule of thumb is it usually takes 36-48 hours to reach the Earth. - Check out this awesome picture of the Northern Lights from viewer Justin. He said it was the best yet this year! twitpic.com/b28rm3
- Aurora: Sun's Shimmering Energy Shocks Earth's Magnetic Field oak.ctx.ly/r/u2p
- A nice northern lights show is currently underway. Very bright at times. I captured this photo about 15 minutes ago yfrog.com/ocbajcp
- Got a rare treat last night coming through the Rocky Mountains. Started seeing green light and as I crested a pretty tall peak there in the sky was the northern lights...it BLEW MY MIND and I had to pull over to watch it...one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. Then I hit an elk going down the mountain... And that kind of ruined the mood.
And an awesome photo from Norway:
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