By WEATHER WORLD on Oct 25, 2011, at 4:14 PM Updated on 10/25 at 4:15 PM
WEATHER WORLD
At the cookout I went to Sunday evening, it was tank top, cutoff jean shorts and flip flops. My friend said to me, “you look ...
This blog was inspired by some of our early morning commenters on the weather forecast story .
Yes, as one of you pointed ...
The deluge earlier this month was exciting. For a second, I though that maybe the near-record parched May was just a fluke ...
The northern lights shine over West Grand Traverse Bay near Traverse City, Mich., on Monday night, Oct. 24 2011. The lights, also known as aurora borealis in the northern hemisphere, are caused by charged particles striking the Earth's atmostphere. (AP Photo/Record-Eagle, Jan-Michael Stump)
That mysterious red glow you saw on the horizon last night? It wasn’t a wildfire or aliens.
It was billions of charged particles ejected from the sun slamming into the atoms in our upper atmosphere.
Aurora borealis! That’s right; the northern lights were visible last night as far south as Oklahoma and across much of the northern hemisphere. A
G2 (moderate) magnetic storm hit right about the time of nightfall across much of the United States, sending the aurora into the lower latitudes.
Unfortunately, since I didn’t know it was on its way, I watched some silly baseball game inside my apartment instead of finding a nice, dark place north of town to observe the splendor (That mistake has been henceforth fixed. You can sign up for email alerts and updates from the Space Weather Prediction Center’s website
here).
I have never seen the aurora before, and every time I see a picture of the haunting, glowing skies, I am envious of those who have (Though, to see them, at least frequently, I’d have to live in a much higher latitude…but I'm not too keen on bitter, unforgiving cold).
Here is a video of the aurora borealis taken Monday in Michigan. It’s closer to the pole, and got a better show than we did, but Michigan is still quite far away from normal aurora reach.
Do you have photos of the aurora? Send them to me at
jerry.wofford@tulsaworld.com and I’ll put them up here!
--Jerry Wofford
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