It had to happen eventually, but, after years of hopeful, ultimately disappointing nighttime trips out to the compost heap, I finally saw the Northern Lights!
OK, so definitely not the most spectacular photo of the aurora borealis you’ve ever seen, but I don’t care… I SAW them! (So did pretty much everyone else in the UK by the sound of it.)
Aurora had been confidently forecast—chalk another one up for science!—and I’d been out for a look a couple of times earlier in the evening, but, as always, no joy. I thought there was nothing happening this time either, but then I noticed some pale white wisps materialising above the Plough. They drifted slowly westwards, looking for all the world like a high-altitude hail-storm. But there were no clouds above them, so definitely not hail. Then I thought I detected a hint of red, and then suddenly, there they were in glorious, albeit dim, Technicolor™. I was astonished at how moving cynical-old-me found the experience.
It was all thanks to a G5 (i.e. extreme) geomagnetic storm that occurred over the weekend of 10–13 October 2024. The Northern Lights are usually green in colour, but these were predominantly red, skirted by some green. The red colour only occurs during especially intense solar activity, appearing higher in the atmosphere than the green, above 240km.
So, that’s one off the bucket list. (Although I wouldn’t at all mind seeing them again sometime soon.)
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