Aurora Possible Tonight

It will be well worthwhile looking at the northern sky this evening and again tomorrow evening.
There's been a very big solar flare and the geomagnetic field is forecast to be "unsettled to very severe storm" today and "unsettled to severe storm" tomorrow. These conditions could produce a good visual display of the 'northern lights'.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17293070

http://www.solen.info/solar/

 

It seems to be clouding over nicely here, so - as usual - this phenomina will pass us by.
I did manage to see the Moon, Venus and Jupiter aligned last week though.

 

I saw that too Gcc, just wish my camera was upto it. Cloudy here too

 

I was reading a report that says this storm will 'strike' the earth today.
Sounds like they are predicting a lot of disruption. Then the report says
might not be any worse than the one we had 6 years ago. Well, I don't
remember there was much publicity about that one was there?

.

 

Wasn't there one just a few years ago that knocked out the electrics in Most of Canada and some of the US? I seem to remember the news portraying it as an apocalypse, with the masses in blind panic because they had to endure one night without power.

 

Problem is, if they don't shut down the power grids when a strong storm is due to hit then it could fry the transformers on the grid.

The powers that be are faced with the decision to black out entire cities or risk the loss. Not an easy decision to make.

If a storm took out all the transformers, we can only produce new ones at the rate of seven a year, which means the richer countries would get the first say on the new ones, while poorer countries like the UK could have to wait upto 10 years to get their electric back on line. 10 years of no national grid, no internet, no power.

Not something to be taken lightly.

 

I think they have to load the grid fully (i.e. anything under maintainance they curtail and get it up and running at full bore) to reduce risk of damage. Could be wrong though given my dodgy memory!

 

Just been out in the garden to have a look, lovely clear sky tonight with a bright moon.

Looking to the north, no sign of the aurora, possibly because we're too far south or, more likely, because about ¼ of a mile to the north of our house is a school with an all-weather sports pitch which has all it's floodlights switched on most evenings.

 

100% cloud here But I don't think there's been any significant aurora as I can normally detect even non-visual auroral activity on my VHF radios and I'm hearing nothing and from what I can see on radio related web sites there's been very little auroral reflection of signals so far.

 

All i can see from here is a big eerie looking glowing cloud...Mr Moon is hiding behind it...Typical...so far this week it's been fabulous moonlit nights but not tonight

 

Just stepped out too, total cloud cover as usual for these events

 

How many days/nights might this last - or is tonight the only
time to see anything? Cloudy here at the moment :(

 

http://solarham.com/

 

Thanks for info Ziggy