Overnight November 3 into 4, all of Canada was basking in the light of one of the biggest auroral displays in decades. Earth was in essence facing a cannibal CME (coronal mass ejection), an unleashing of material and energy from the sun, hurled in the general direction of our planet, and which, in this case, caught up with a slower-moving CME.
Of course, we here on Canada’s wet, yes, wet and west, coast weren’t able to take in the spectacle produced by this two-storms-in-one event, as our skies were blanketed by a much more mundane and earthly rain storm.
Auroral displays, or more colloquially, the northern lights, is something many have never seen here in the Metro Vancouver area. Urban light pollution is a factor. However, the sun itself has been at a low point in its long cycle of solar activity. In recent weeks though there have been three opportunities to see the northern lights in the Vancouver area.
That first opportunity, in early October, was missed by many. I managed to see the green bands from my own sundeck, and had an even better view at a dark spot in a park about a hundred metres away. There I could spot detail in the bands and even see a vertical pillar or two. A camera brought out even greater detail.
When news reports suggested a second opportunity was coming, there was a sudden, and almost overwhelming, demand for information on the northern lights. I was posting, as I typically do, to my Twitter feed on that Saturday evening, about science matters of interest that day. Off hand I mentioned in a tweet that chances for auroral activity visible from Vancouver were picking up. I labeled the tweet “Update 1”.
I really wasn’t prepared for the Twitter activity that followed. My tweets were gathering thousands of views, no, make that tens of thousands. In fact by midnight, collectively, a dozen or so update tweets had amassed more than three hundred thousand views. Within an hour or two my Twitter follower count had jumped from just over eight thousand to slightly over nine thousand.
Questions began pouring in. I did my best to answer them all patiently. They fell mostly into two camps: “where is a good place in my area to see if I can spot the northern lights?”, and “should I bother driving to Porteau Cove/Pitt Lake/Manning Park?”.
Having been an auroral activity watcher for decades, ever since being captivated by their sight from an aircraft over Saskatchewan, while still a teenager, I am well aware of the ephemeral and fickle nature of anticipated northern lights appearances, especially here in southwest BC.
In most cases I suggested that people stay in their own neighbourhood. As it turned out, for Metro Vancouver that was the right move because the projections for the arrival of the CME were somewhat amiss, making it more a glancing blow than a direct hit.
However, what followed, another CME, that overtook remnants of the Saturday evening material, turned into one of the most awe-inspiring auroral displays across the entire country. Except here, of course, where we were instead enjoying about 50 mm of rainfall.
Don’t be like some of my Twitter followers, lamenting the lost opportunity. Instead, know that there are more opportunities coming to see one of nature’s true spectacles. Sure, you can install an aurora alert app on your mobile. But why not take the opportunity to learn a little more about auroral events through a few excellent web resources.
Spaceweather.com: Here you can see what to expect in the next few days. See current space weather conditions in terms of the solar wind speed and proton density. Most valuable of all, see a one-hour forecast for the “donut”, the area around the pole where auroral activity is anticipated.
swpc.noaa.gov/products/3-day-forecast: NOAA 3-day space weather forecast. This is a “just the numbers” site. You’ll need to be familiar with reading time in UTC rather than in local Pacific time.
Spaceweather.gc.ca: this Canadian site is a terrific learning resource and it produces an easy-to-follow map and table of auroral activity for the next six hours.
When the next solar storm heads our way, make use of one of those resource sites, and follow Twitter hashtags such as #NorthernLights or #Aurora to get a flavour of what others are seeing.
Nov. 10 update: As I look back through Twitter’s metrics for my account over the past 28 days, I am simply stunned.
Tweet impressions just over 900 thousand, profile visits up almost 1500%, new followers up over 800 (most of that occurred in one night, as Northern Lights interest reached a fever pitch).
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