What is the farthest south you've seen the Northern Lights in your lifetime?

[DarioAlbahari]

I'm writing an article on how far south the Aurora Borealis can be seen, so if you would like to contribute, it would be great to say what the farthest south you've ever seen the aurora is, (if you have),and what KP it was that day. (I have an idea of how far south auroras can be seen with each KP, but it would be great if you can share your experience)

 

Thanks,

Dario Albahari                

 

[Vancanneyt Sander]

With the Halloween storms of 2003 and the storms of March 1989 Aurora was seen as low as Texas and Florida. Both where G5/Kp9 storms. There will be more examples of the past but those two are special events.

[DarioAlbahari]

Wow...I didn't know about 1989....I thought that the only time that far south Aurora was seen was 1859.....

[Vancanneyt Sander]

Also take a look at our archive and our top 50 geomagnetic storms for some more interesting days in space weather history (since 1996). 

[Capricopia]

Edinburgh Scotland UK 55.94N in 1989

 

[Maxime Fiset]

2003, Québec city

[Christopher S.]

Living in Southwest US, I've never seen it. I've lived in Wisconsin, but I wasn't savvy at that point - still a kid.

[Vancanneyt Sander]

Op 28/1/2021 om 19:42, DarioAlbahari zei:

I'm writing an article on how far south the Aurora Borealis can be seen, so if you would like to contribute, it would be great to say what the farthest south you've ever seen the aurora is, (if you have),and what KP it was that day. (I have an idea of how far south auroras can be seen with each KP, but it would be great if you can share your experience)            

Some more dates you may need to check observations with 🙂 the following dates are all storms of Kp9 (ranked in order of the Ap index). I could go for a top 30 most extreme storms but top 10 is nice too  

1. 18 september 1941
2. 11 december 1960
3. 13 march 1989
4. 24 march 1940
5. 10 june 1960
6. 29 October 2003
7. 15 July 1959
8. 31 march 1960
9. 25 may 1967
10. 13 July 1982
11. ...

In the event of 25th may 1967 the following was noted "Aurora is reported as far south as New Mexico".

The event of march 13th 1989 was caused by an X4 solar flare, but the solar activity was high and the strength was probably the accumulation of two CME's of region 5359. I couldn't find anything about locations but can say that The K-indices for High and also middle latitudes where both at 9! So all middle latitude regions at that time at night would have seen overhead aurora with low latitudes also a high probability. 

The event of July 13th 1982 (X7), at high and low latitude magnetometer stations K-indices where up to 8 and 9. Also it mentions: "A storm of sufficient magnitude to produce aurora at least as far south as Boulder"

[Gabriel Hofstra]

If I remembered correctly there was reports of aurora in Singapore in early 20th century or something like that! But Im not sure if this is exactly correct or not. The southernmost aurora I have seen was when the aurora were straight over Oslo, Norway on 18th March 2015.

[Vancanneyt Sander]

I don’t remember maps of these events, just location based reports of observations

[Vancanneyt Sander]

According to the reports of those severe geomagnetic storms: yes

During the halloween storms of 2003:

Quote

Aurora sightings occurred from California to Houston to Florida. Tremendous aurora viewing was also reported from mid-Europe and even as far south as the Mediterranean countries.

I did found some kind of a map  it's a satellite image during the extreme halloween storms during the night of October 30th and a nice picture of the aurora from Colorado 

[Rocky Raybell]

My position has never been south of about 47.9, but during some strong storms I've seen activity in every direction except southeast.  One was the St. Patrick's Day storm in 2015, directly overhead and well to the south.  That was a k8.  Another was a K6 from a Filament eruption that arrived Oct 1, 2013.  Again well south of straight up from my location and I had a confirmation that some of what I got to the south were proton aurora's that looked like drifting pools of glowing gas floating like clouds from west to east and some examples of those are here.  This has a lot to do with the lay of the land so I think it's where you see them in the sky from where you are.  I can get photo's of activity including pillars real low on the horizon in a k2 because this north south valley gives me a view of about 1 or 2 degrees above the horizon to the north in some of the places I shoot from.    https://www.flickr.com/photos/rockyraybell/10062299585/in/album-72157636118434453/

[Paul1020101]

i have never seen one

 

[Jure Atanackov]

This paper should be interesting: Timelines as a tool for learning about space weather storms | Journal of Space Weather and Space Climate (swsc-journal.org)

Interestingly enough, July 15, 2000, March 31, 2001, Oct 29-30, 2003 and Nov 20, 2003 events are not in there. In any case, I'm at 41°N corrected geomagnetic latitude, we get aurora here during events with about DST < -100 nT. During Oct 2003 event we had aurora up to about 80° high in the north, the Nov 2003 event pushed it into the southern sky (70° high in the S sky). Saw aurora here 3x in SC24 and 6x in SC23 (but I know there were several events during SC23 when the sky was clear and I missed it).

[JBnID]

One of my very first memories was seeing the 'lights' as we crossed the Georgia-Florida line in 1949 or '50. My folks were in awe and very excited.  I was about three years old.

 In S. Idaho now and have seen them twice here.