March 19, 2023 Auroras
Grand Rapids, Minnesota
There was nothing spectacular about the solar wind for this evening, but we were near the new moon phase, so the skies were dark, the weather was clear, and Bz dipped to as low as -5 nT in the evening. Checking the GOES Magnetometer data, as well as seeing Facebook posts from a couple other people in northern Minnesota, I concluded that the auroras were out. It was near 3:00 AM, but my biological clock was still on Finnish time, so it might as well have been 10:00 AM, and I was used to being on my skis at that time. I drove out to Prairie Lake, and sure enough, the auroras were present. They were pretty low on the horizon, as one might expect for a modest Bz (which had now been near zero for several hours). The Spring Equinox helped generate auroras due to a more favorable orientation between Earth's magnetosphere and the solar wind.
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| Auroras over Prairie Lake. |