August 12, 2024 Auroras

Pughole Lake

Bz around -20 nT before sunset and then in the mid negative teens throughout the evening brought the auroras overhead and to the south. The solar wind disturbance was brought on by multiple CMEs impacting Earth over the weekend. This was quite a nice display, but the contrast was a little lower than it would normally be because of a bit of smoke/haze in the sky. It wasn't horribly thick, but it did make a difference in visibility. During these strongly negative Bz episodes, the auroras can be rather extensive, spatially, so there aren't really many dark areas in the sky, so that can reduce the contrast, also.

It was a Sunday evening, and I had to work the next day, so I stayed relatively close to home. I wanted to get at least a little bit out of town in order to avoid the smoke/haze illumination by the city lights. I pulled into the Pughole Lake boat ramp. I was joined by a couple other people, one of whom stayed until I left. It was quite nice seeing auroras overhead with Bz in the negative teens. I had been worried that the drift of the geomagnetic pole gradually away from Minnesota would pull the auroras away from Minnesota, but at least so far, this drift has not made a huge difference in our aurora viewing.

THe display kept going past 1:45 AM when I decided I needed to call it quits. Bz took a northward turn, so I used that as an excuse to go home. I had just watched a substorm develop right overhead. It was actually hard to notice the substorm because the auroras were already overhad. However, the ground and all surroundings became more brightly illuminated than I have every seen during an aurora event. My camera was shooting a time lapse at the time, and the end of the timelapse showed the brightening and the beginning of the expansion of the band both southward and northward.

When I arrived at the boat landing around 10:30, the auroras were already pretty high in the sky and rather colorful.

20 minutes later, they had spread over more of the northern sky.

At 11:06 PM, this colorful display ensued.

11:14 PM. The oval is moving farther south and is nearly overhead.

At 12:23, Oscar the Grouch showed up.

12:28 PM, I bumped up the contrast a bit because smoke was reducing it.

12:53 PM, and the auroral band is directly overhead.

I took this picture looking south right after a substorm initiated directly overhead. This is probably the brightest illumination by auroras I have ever experienced.

Back to the north, some colorful bands appeared.

The coronas became more intense.

Also, some brighter auroras occurred back to the north.

Lots of color, and auroras filled the sky.

More corona patterns.

Last shot, taken from home, at 2:16 AM right before I went to bed.

Bz hit -20 nT before sunset then bounced around between -10 and -18 before going north as I drove home. It went back south to -20 nT by sunrise.

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