Aurora on display “Strongest storm since 2005”

By Jo Nova

Just in case you happen to be near clear night skies…  they are being reported in NZ, East and West Australia. Check the Glendale App.

BBC NEWS “For the first time since 2005, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) has issued a G4 geomagnetic storm watch for this weekend, the second highest on its scale.”

SEVERE GEOMAGNETIC STORM–NOW!! The first of six CMEs hurled toward Earth by giant sunspot AR3664 just hit our planet’s magnetic field. The impact on May 10th at 1645 UT jolted magnetometers around the world (e.g., 108 nT in Boulder CO) and sparked a severe (G4-class) geomagnetic storm. This storm is underway now. More CMEs are following close behind

h/t CO2 Lover

 

 

9.8 out of 10 based on 43 ratings

47 comments to Aurora on display “Strongest storm since 2005”

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    Was keen to see if it could be seen here close to 100 K north of Canberra but the the steady but not extreme rain Flannery is pouring down. The “permanent drought” being the wettest ever. Was wondering if the many many Aurora sightings of the past from places like Rockhampton and Carnarvon could still be repeated. I think the 1859 event is almost worshiped but there were many more like it that also set fire to Telegraph paper and melted wires etc.
    Keen to know if we still get oval shaped rings of Aurora around both poles far toward the equator from both.

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      Bingo. I saw my first aurora! Red glow visible from Perth at 32 S. So strong it could be seen from inside suburbia and with the city to south of me too. Would have looked fantastic in a dark area.
      Look, this is nothing to a Norwegian, but I’ve never seen one…

      Camera on 15 second exp.

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      • #
        PeterPetrum

        Hi Jo, when I was a very wee boy I lived in Fort William in the NW of Scotland during WWII. I remember Dad waking me up to see the Norther Lights and Mum singing “the Northern Lights of old Aberdeen” to me. Fort William is on roughly the same latitude as Aberdeen. I was fascinated as some nights they seemed to fill the sky.

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      • #
        surftilidie

        Hi Jo

        My daughter is on a farm down at Vass. She sent me some great pics of the sky this morning at 5 am. No idea how to post them on your site. But I have them on my phone.

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      William

      Way to much Flannery here in Sydney to see anything.

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      Peter C

      I have just seen the Aurora from St Kilda beach, Melbourne.
      See #4.2

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      Geoff

      Rain is coming. Earthquakes and volcanic eruptions as tec plates move. Sol rules.

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  • #

    No sight at 50°N despite the forecast for Auroras to be visible down to 45°N.

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    David Maddison

    Can’t see anything in Melbournistan due to rain clouds which Flim Flammery promised us we would never have (or rarely so).

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    • #
      Annie

      Just our luck! Very clear nights until the last two; that law is operating again. We’ve yet to see one.

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    Honk R Smith

    If the World ends, marginalized ethnic communities will be the hardest hit.

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    • #
      John Connor II

      If the world ends, DEI will finally die too.
      The abo’s can have Oz back like they want too, just no white fella luxuries and cash.

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      Peter C

      I made an immense effort to get up and drive to St Kilda .
      Time now 0320am

      I am sitting on the sand with a sea wall at my back to block out as much of the city light as I can but really the lights are all around except to the south .
      Even then the city extends all around Port Phillip bay..

      Through bleary old eyes I can see a green tinged glow on the southern horizon with some hints of red. The strength varies and it is fading now

      I think I might go home to bed.

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  • #
    Lawrie

    Since it cannot be attributed to climate change it will go unreported in our illustrious press. How could it effect an unreliable grid?

    It!

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    • #

      It could also be that us communications and power people have known what to do since around 1882 and that the systems most likely to fall down will be the politicised or under quoted ones where mentioning worst case scenarios is actively avoided. Apart from where something like Y2K or the apprentice needs the blame.
      The Following both about a three day global magnetic storm from 17 November 1882.

      Using balance pairs.

      After a time a method was discovered by the electricians of the Western Union Company of overcoming the disturbing force. The plan is described as follows:—
      When, on account of the great induction, it was impossible to work with one wire it was found that by taking two wires from the ground between any two given points, and joining their ends together instead of the same being grounded, a circuit was formed that could bo successfully worked. In this way eight wires between Chicago and Buffalo were made to do the service of four. All the long wires were broken up into short circuits, by which New York and far western points were reached.

      Bendigo Advertiser Wed 3 Jan 1883 Page 1 REMARKABLE AURORAS AND MAGNETIC STORMS.
      https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/88579965

      Using shielding while avoiding ground loops.

      All the cables and wires that touched the ground were absolutely useless. . . .
      At Chicago the intensity of the currents appears to have been greatest. The switch-board of the Western Onion ofiice was on fire a dozen times during the forenoon, and half-a-dozen keys were fused by the current, the points burning up even when parted to their farthest limits.

      Geelong Advertiser Sat 3 Feb 1883 Page 2 THE MAGNETIC STORM IN AMERICA.
      https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/150429040

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      • #
        John PAK

        Siliggy, I reckon that the idea of shortening any conductor is a sound one. If we do get a really big solar eruption akin to the Carrington Event we will be in strife as our magnetosphere is fading at an accelerating rate. Those aurorae might look pretty but we don’t need them down here at ground level. The MSM seem to have skipped the significance of our ever decreasing magnetic force-field and no-one has offered me a satisfactory explanation for our North Pole galloping towards Russia either.
        I have a solar flare/ thunder storm protocol which includes:
        1) unplugging my meter-board from the grid (remove fuses and circuit-breakers),
        2) remove the wire from my earth-bond stake (illegal),
        3) unplug all appliances including TV antenna, MODEM wires, phones etc
        I have a couple of generators and plenty of petrol, diesel and LPG. In a big CME event I’d send out a group text message as we’d have a good 12 hrs warning of its arrival. Dr Tony Phillips at Spaceweather.com runs a solar text alert system for US$50p.a. but I reckon we’re a few years off the big one.

        People laugh at me but NASA have been warning about super CMEs for decades and simple precautions will at least reduce personal property damage. During bad thunder-storms I’ve lost computers, MODEMs, phones etc as I live on a hill that is lightning prone and we often hear the sizzle of near-by lightning bolts a moment before the sonic boom. As a habit I always turn off power-points after use and unplug the MODEM when leaving the house. All sensitive IT gear runs through Belkin power-boards. Much to my surprise I found that if you keep the carton with the bar-code, Belkin will replace the power-board when it is sacrificed during a lightning strike. The man at Belkin didn’t even want me to return the dead board.

        My concern is that the Au grid operators don’t understand the threat and it would take them days to have meetings to decide to fragment the grid into short lengths.

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  • #
    David Maddison

    Here are some pictures of the aurora from various places in Victoriastan, Australia as posted on Farcebook. I am not sure if you have to be a member of the FB group Aurora Hunters Victoria to see them or not. I am a member.

    https://www.facebook.com/groups/AuroraHuntersVictoria/?ref=share&mibextid=NSMWBT

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  • #
    David Maddison

    Now I am waiting for some warmist or Leftist to tell me CMEs are caused by manmade global warming.

    Yes, they really are that stupid.

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    • #
      David Maddison

      In 1909, an Australian gold miner named C F Herbert retold his observations in a letter to the Daily News in Perth:

      I was gold-digging at Rokewood, about four miles [6 km] from Rokewood township (Victoria). Myself and two mates looking out of the tent saw a great reflection in the southern heavens at about 7 o’clock p.m., and in about half an hour, a scene of almost unspeakable beauty presented itself:

      Lights of every imaginable color were issuing from the southern heavens, one color fading away only to give place to another if possible more beautiful than the last, the streams mounting to the zenith, but always becoming a rich purple when reaching there, and always curling round, leaving a clear strip of sky, which may be described as four fingers held at arm’s length.

      The northern side from the zenith was also illuminated with beautiful colors, always curling round at the zenith, but were considered to be merely a reproduction of the southern display, as all colors south and north always corresponded.

      It was a sight never to be forgotten, and was considered at the time to be the greatest aurora recorded […]. The rationalist and pantheist saw nature in her most exquisite robes, recognising, the divine immanence, immutable law, cause, and effect. The superstitious and the fanatical had dire forebodings, and thought it a foreshadowing of Armageddon and final dissolution.[21]

      How many people today, products of the deliberately dumbed-down education system, could write something like that?

      And that was from a gold miner in 1909 retelling his observations from the 1859 Carrington Event!

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        Interesting that it was seen in Queensland in 1909.
        Dalby, Warwick, Clifton and Toowoomba sightings documented here along with info from Sydney.
        Click here Queensland Times Ipswich, Qld. Tue 28 Sep 1909 Page 5 THE AURORA AUSTRALIS.

        Quote below part of a decsription from Molong Express and Western District Advertiser Sat 2 Oct 1909 Page 11

        All around the sky, except in the extreme north, the same wonderful phenomena were visible, lights bursting into existence not unlike the distant glare of a bush fire. These continued for some time, and remarkable though there were, and even terrifying to those who had never heard of the beauties of the aurora, they were succeeded with that more marvellous and glorious rosy haze which helps to give the wonderful lights their name. The southern sky grew rosy across a wide and high arc, the tinge ever deepening, undulating and shimmering. Anon the bow of the aurora attained more definite shape, like a corona or a section of the hub of a wheel which had never been fashioned on earth, shafts of blue light springing therefrom and extending and expanding upwards into the sky.

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  • #

    Of related interest some quotes from a longer news paper articles.
    Click here Leader Melbourne, Vic. Sat 7 May 1892 Page 42.

    The correspondence is so striking that an astronomer, M. Wolf, director of the observatory at Zurich has established formulae for calculating the number of spots on the sun by examining magnetic obserations only, without need of observing the sun. He wrote me lately that these formulae have never waited for verification more than a few months. The curve drawn to express on a physiological chart the daily, monthly, yearly state of the suns ‘a health presents the same deflectons, the same rate and proportions as the curve representing the daily, monthly and yearly observations of the magnetic needle.

    Click here Leader Melbourne, Vic. Sat 17 Mar 1894 Page 29.

    Several astronomers try to partially explain these differences of behavior by supposing that the effects of a solar outburst are greatest when the spots producing them have just come into view on the eastem edge of the sun. If so it will explain also how it is that auroras often seem to recur at invervals of 27 days, for the sun rotates on its axis in about that period, and if a spot has produced one aurora just as it is coming into view, it will again be in its most favorable position for producing another 27 days afterwards.

    From memory old Inigo Jones wrote sometime around 1950 that the strongest link between rain and sunspots was a couple of days after the spots departed the western edge.

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  • #
    Roy

    We have to stop carbon pollution to prevent more such events, and if you like such natural spectacles you will have to stop emitting carbon if you want to see mor of them. Understood?

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  • #
    Asp

    Oh my golly gosh! There goes my Digital ID.(and bank account)

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  • #
    John Connor II

    Lits of pics from the EU:
    https://www.foto-webcam.eu/webcam/lucknerhaus/

    Most of the EU is glowing pink.
    A sign! A sign! 😆

    NOAA says tonight’s ‘cannibal’ solar storm could be worst in 165 YEARS and cause GPS and power outages – as they reveal exact time it’ll hit

    Earth could suffer the worst solar storm in 165 years as six streams of plasma that erupted from the sun this week are set to make crash into our atmosphere tonight.

    The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) revealed today that the worst-case scenario would be what happened during the 1859 Carrington event, which set telegraph stations on fire, cutting communications worldwide.

    In our modern-day society, a geomagnetic storm of that magnitude could cause widespread electrical disruptions, blackouts and damage to critical infrastructure.

    The event could also trigger magnificent nighttime auroras, or the northern lights, which will be visible in the US starting around 11pm ET and lasting through Saturday.

    Scientists will know how severe the storm will be at around around 8 pm ET when the explosions of plasma racing through space will be nearly one million miles from our planet – and NOAA plans to issue alerts immediately.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-13404835/cannibal-solar-storm-gps-power-outage.html

    Candles. Check.
    Gas bbq. Check.

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  • #
    Old Goat

    For the scientific minds this will be something worthy of study and measurement . It will be interesting to note what effects it has on the natural world as well as the electronic world . Has anyone noted changes to GPS accuracy or effects to satellite services ?

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    DOC

    I grew up in Boulder, Western Australia -aka the twin city to Kalgoorlie – in the 1940’s. The Aurora Australis was strong in the evenings in those days, and common. It was seen as flowing reddish and green sheets of light if I recall correctly. Quite beautiful, but to a child with no understanding of what was seen it was mysterious and in some ways scary. Esperance on the south coast was the holiday spot.It had its ‘skylights’ seen over the ocean and islands to the south east in the evenings. It was so ho hum common that one didn’t notice that they disappeared in the ’50’s and never came back. I have often wondered why this was so in retrospect and under what conditions the australis would reappear in those latitudes on such a constant basis. Does Borrealis have a similar history or is it just the tourist dollars that are making it so popular?

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    John Connor II

    This is curious:

    How the sun could wipe us out.
    A burst of plasma would set in motion a devastating cascade of failures.

    The world began to end on 12th May 2024, though another 309 years would pass before our species finally went extinct.

    https://unherd.com/2021/07/how-the-sun-could-wipe-us-out/

    Posted almost 3 years ago, but got the date pretty spot on, with more CME activity to come.

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    • #
      GreatAuntJanet

      This one is curious too – sorry, it’s from X, so you have to log in to see the whole thread and sources. https://twitter.com/RWMaloneMD/status/1789442346259517473

      Some text from Dr Malone’s post – “When do conspiracy theories become reality?
      The following text is from the subscription AI program (Perplexity) that I use for general searches.
      “On May 10th, 2024, HAARP conducted experiments to artificially create aurora-like glows or “airglow” in the ionosphere by exciting electrons with high-frequency radio waves. The “Making the Invisible Visible” experiment tested if hot electrons produced by HAARP’s radio transmissions could generate an aurora-like phenomenon called STEVE (Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement).”
      No words…”

      HAARP – never heard of it before, but seems to be a question: were last night’s aurora natural or man made?

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  • #
    Phil

    The best aurora I have seen in my lifetime was a few years ago at Franklin in Tasmania. Initially the dancing curtains of green and pink and later the most spectacular shooting beams of white light. Awesome.
    Tonight I went out in southern Victoria to check the sky and to my amazement there was a long string of white lights moving across the sky, thought I had hit the jackpot of all sightings. Turns out with a look up it is Elons Starlink satellites moving through the sky reaching their orbits. Fabulous sight.

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    Wilco

    Thanks Jo, for the heads up and the aurora app link.

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    Vicki

    Had a complete blackout on the NSW tablelands last night – at least in our valley. Suspect it was associated with the massive solar flares.

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  • #
    bobby b

    There was no solar storm.

    This was a desperate but beautiful gasp of pain given out by Mother Gaia, begging us to stop killing her slowly with our presence.

    How dare you keep living?!

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    Epon

    How many seconds does it take for light to get from the sun to the earth?
    Clouds of electrons and protons are still moving pretty fast. I think there’s a lot more science to be explained here.
    Especially why there hasn’t been any notable disruption to communications. There’s a quite a lot more satellites up there these days.
    Not to mention… DOES NOBODY REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENED IN DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS?😂

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