March 2012 Weak Auroras
Grand Rapids, MN
A full week of weak auroras occurred as a high speed solar stream buffeted Earth's magnetosphere in the middle of March. Compared to March 2013, this one was extremely warm and much the opposite as far as snow is concerned. The warm temperatures made it easy to be outside, so out I went in an effort to document how frequently some auroras might be visible by line of sight from northern Minnesota, no matter how dim. If the camera could pick them up and display them in time lapse mode, they counted. Here they are below.
Many of these were from high speed solar wind with speeds in excess of 600 km/s, and on a couple nights, Bz really did not drop south at all (maybe -1 nT or 02 nT).
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| March 13. Photographed a conjunction of planets but also got aurora. |
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| March 14. Arrow shows where it is. It really needs a time lapse to be noticeable. |
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| March 15. It's a bit more evident than March 14 was. |
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| March 16 from Trout Lake. |
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| March 16 at Peterson Road. |
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| March 17 on Pughole Lake. My last foray onto the ice for the season. |
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| March 18 from Pughole Lake. It had been almost 80 degrees during the previous day. |
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| March 19 from Peterson Road. |