30 Mar 2001 Aurora Report

by Robert Leyland

This was a big one. An X class flare, K factor 9, the largest sunspot of this solar cycle, and good timing, all combined to make a very rare event happen: Aurora visible as far south as Northern California.

My father e-mailed me from Auckland, New Zealand, to tell me that they had been seeing Aurora there last night, as a dim red glow from urban locations. He had seen it himself, and was quite thrilled by it, as it is a rare occurrence in that part of the world also. It hadn't happened while I was growing up, and I believe this was the first time my Dad had seen it.

Last night I looked for it, here in Novato, but didn't see anything around midnight.

Tonight, after hearing initial reports on the radio, my wife phoned me to let me know it was on. I rushed outside, into the parking lot of a shopping mall. A few minutes to dark adapt, and shade my eyes from the ubiquitous street lights, then "WOW!" the northern sky is red.

I got my card playing buddies to come outside. I explained what to look for, and why this was so rare. Everyone saw the crimson glow, and a few of them "got it", understanding the significance of the phenomenon, and what it represents. For most, it was: "ok, I see it, uh huh", and back inside.

The show was too good for me to miss, so I quit the card game, and with one other player (Rustin Grudy) we drove about 10 miles out of town to the intersection of the Petaluma-Pt Reyes highway, and Novato Blvd. This is a reasonably dark area, shielded from the lights of Petaluma and Novato by ridges of hills, and not very heavily driven. Here the skies are about a 4 on the Bortle scale, and a notable improvement on the shopping mall area :-)

The auroral display had three distinct components, firstly a red glow that suffused the northern half of the sky to varying degrees of translucency. Secondly bands, or stripes of white and pink colours interspersed with darker regions, sometimes side by side with red stripes. Thirdly luminous green glowing patches.

The red glow existed across the sky, in slowly pulsing patterns of dark crimson. At its peak, it stretch from the setting moon, to the other side of the sky, over 190 degrees of angle, and well over 90 degrees vertically. Much of the time I could make out a band across the entire sky.

The light stripes looked like searchlight beams, sometimes light white, some times pink, sometimes tinged with green. These emanations had quite sharp and distinct edges, in contrast to the other effects which were diffuse. Early in the outburst the beams came down vertically from the northern sky, appearing to drop from the Big Dipper, off the ladle, and off the handle. Later they appeared overhead, and seemed to converge in the constellation LEO, simply awesome.

Large green glowing regions came and went with some frequency, lasting 3 to 5 minutes and then fading away. The first time we noticed them, I thought it was light pollution from Petaluma, but when it faded away, and we could see the stars "behind", we knew it was something more. Several times these luminous regions were very bright, rivalling the moon, and quite large. They always appeared to the north, and never higher than 45 degrees.

This was a sight to behold, even at 1:00 AM the northern sky was glowing dark crimson red, albeit in a much smaller area. The SolNet group had warnings posted of more flares today, so we may see more activity tomorrow.

I am quite hopeful.

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