My mother grew up in Minnesota, and would tell stories of the northern lights. I’ve longer to see them. When I visited there last month, predictions of the lights were strong. On clear nights, I got up to look. And saw nothing. Lots and lots of stars. No aurora.
When my son Dan and I went to Iceland a couple years ago, one night the prediction for lights were strong, so we arose in the early hours, drove to an ice covered bay to look north. And saw no magical lights.
Dan texted last night and said the geomagnetic storm slamming into Earth was a giving prediction of a light display here peaking soon. We went to a nearby forest preserve where we could look over a lake. Gates locked. We went to another preserve were we could look over a horse track that we knew would be open since we went there to see a comet a few years before.
We saw nothing. Our cameras—as in the first image posted above—with sensors more sensitive than our eyes did show some faint color in the northwest. We chatted and waited. We were thinking of leaving, when he took a photo with his phone and said, “look there.” Sure enough, your eyes could start to make out some color.
And the show began. Red and greens grew and moved across reaching far overhead. We are at the peak of the 11-year solar cycle, so hopefully this Fall will bring more such shows.
