I live in mid-latitudes (North Florida / North Georgia) what is the likelihood of me being able to catch a glimpse of the Aurora?

[Aryan Singh]

Hey everyone. I am sorta new here. 

I live on lower mid latitudes and given that there is a major solar storm as a result of a CME hitting Earth today (February 10th, 2022), I want to navigate to the best spot where I can catch a glimpse of the Aurora. 

Do I drive up North? My grandma has come to visit me all the way from my home country and always wanted to see the Northern Lights. Can I make her visit more memorable by navigating to the nearest aurora watch site?

Best

[FairyG]

I'm all the way in NY on a lonely dark mountain top and the best I can see is changing colors in the far far distance when I sit in the complete dark at a vantage point. If you look under the Aurora section there is KP level and you can look at the map to see what number it has to be to reach where you are!

[Solarflaretracker200]

In Florida you need KP9 which is extreme auroral activity 

[FairyG]

48 minutes ago, Solarflaretracker200 said:

In Florida you need KP9 which is extreme auroral activity 

If it's a KP9 would that be a big impact on today's technology? What class solar flare would need to happen or can it happen without one?

[Solarflaretracker200]

10 minutes ago, FairyG said:

If it's a KP9 would that be a big impact on today's technology

I’m not a total expert or anything on this, but I think from a KP9 we would have fried satellites and down communication. 

 

11 minutes ago, FairyG said:

What class solar flare would need to happen

Probably a X10 or more but it depends on if it’s a full hit or not. 

[Oliver]

I wouldn't call Georgia mid-latitudes in Northern lights terms. I'm in Helsinki (60°N) & still only consider this upper-mid. Auroras here start becoming visible around Kp=5.

So, I'm guessing one needs Kp=9 or so down there. This current storm is likely Kp=4 or 5, not too strong. So, one would have to drive at least to northern Minnesota. I'd suggest wait for at least a 6 & go somewhere north.

[Marcel de Bont]

4 minuten geleden, Oliver zei:

I wouldn't call Georgia mid-latitudes in Northern lights terms. I'm in Helsinki (60°N) & still only consider this upper-mid. Auroras here start becoming visible around Kp=5.

So, I'm guessing one needs Kp=9 or so down there. This current storm is likely Kp=4 or 5, not too strong. So, one would have to drive at least to northern Minnesota. I'd suggest wait for at least a 6 & go somewhere north.

Welcome Oliver.

You are right, Aryan would need Kp8 or even Kp9 to have a chance to catch some aurora. If you are serious about seeing the northern lights you would need to travel to places like Alaska or indeed places like Minnesota during a minor or moderate geomagnetic storm but that is quite the roadtip!

1 uur terug, FairyG zei:

If it's a KP9 would that be a big impact on today's technology? What class solar flare would need to happen or can it happen without one?

Lets not go too much off topic, but just want to chime in but Kp9 does not automatically mean gloom and doom. Satellites can go in a safe mode to ride the storm and minimize the chance of damage and power grids can redistribute their loads if needed for example. You would most certainly need an X-class solar flare which launches a strong, fast earth-bound CME. But Kp9 is rare. If you want to discuss this further and have more questions feel free to open a new topic.

[KW2P]

The farthest south I've ever seen the aurora was in Southern Nevada (Pahrump) 30 years ago.  It covered the northern 1/3 of the sky and was composed of large patches of steady blood red with rays of white that shot upward from the northern horizon. No other colors.

[KW2P]

To add a bit more info to my previous comment.  I'm a ham radio guy but back around 1990 I only paid attention to SSN and SFI because those directly affect radio propagation. I hadn't yet studied solar activity in enough detail to understand the K-index, etc.  K-index also affects radio propagation but negatively.  A high K-index results in radio blackouts.  In a way, hams and aurora watchers are on opposite sides of this.  For radio I want the SSN / SFI as high as possible with a K-index of 0 to 2.  With a K-index of 4 or higher, it's time to turn the radio off and work on something else. Hahaha.

I have no idea what the K-index was for this aurora in Pahrump. I wasn't paying attention to it.

Geomagnetic latitude is what matters when it comes to seeing the aurora. The geomagnetic latitude of Pahrump is 43 degrees. This means it takes a Kp 9 event and a strong one to create the aurora I saw.

Below is a table of geomagnetic latitude versus the approximate K-index required for visible aurora.

Mag
Lat     Kp
66.5    0
64.5    1
62.4    2
60.4    3
58.3    4
56.3    5
54.2    6
52.2    7
50.1    8
48.1    9

Then I dug up historical K-index data to identify any candidate events during the time when we might have seen this.  (My wife and kids also saw it.  In fact it was my wife who saw it first and called me outside.)

Candidate Events:

13mar1989  Kp 9++ for 6 hours, Kp 8 > 24 hours
19sep1989  Kp 8
21oct1989  Kp 8 >24 hours
17nov1989  Kp 8
10apr1990  Kp 8 >12 hours
12jun1990  Almost Kp 9
28jul1990  Kp 8
24mar1991  Kp 9 for 72 hours (!)
05jun1991  Kp 9 for 24 hours
13jul1991  Kp 9

19,20aug1991    Kp 8

28,29oct1991    Almost Kp 9

8,9nov1991    Kp 9

The magnetic latitude of Northern Georgia is a couple of degrees more north than Pahrump, around 45 degrees, so I'd expect a similar likelihood of seeing an aurora.

Bottom line is, yes it's possible but you might grow old before it happens.  Lol.

 

(I didn't see a way to use a monospace font on this forum to keep data tables aligned. Sorry.)

Edited February 10, 2022 by KW2P
More info update

[Sam Warfel]

43 minutes ago, KW2P said:

I have no idea what the K-index was for this aurora in Pahrump. I wasn't paying attention to it.

Do you know when it was?

[KW2P]

Unfortunately, no.  I didn't note the date at the time and can't think of a way to guess it.

I was hoping that by pulling up historical data I would find one storm that really stood out, but there are too many candidates.  I didn't expect Kp 8 and 9 storms to be so frequent in the early 90s.

[Sam Warfel]

18 minutes ago, KW2P said:

Unfortunately, no.  I didn't note the date at the time and can't think of a way to guess it.

I was hoping that by pulling up historical data I would find one storm that really stood out, but there are too many candidates.  I didn't expect Kp 8 and 9 storms to be so frequent in the early 90s.

You could try looking for news reports of Auroras from your area from that time, it would probably have been newsworthy. Google “Aurora (place) Florida news”, or a year as well if you have it 

Edited February 10, 2022 by Orneno

[KW2P]

Well, well, well.  Thanks for the suggestion.  Searching for old news reports can be incredibly difficult but this time it wasn't so bad.

https://apnews.com/article/255039b229f1384f62e6d5cf0eb927dd

Even the colors and behavior match.

I'll have to add on to my table up there. I didn't go far enough. November 1991 is certainly possible.

 

[Sam Warfel]

Sounds like quite a show. Too bad SWL archive doesn’t go back far enough. @Vancanneyt Sanderis there any data on X-ray flares as far back as 1991, or did we not have anything measuring it then?

[KW2P]

2 hours ago, Orneno said:

Sounds like quite a show. Too bad SWL archive doesn’t go back far enough. @Vancanneyt Sanderis there any data on X-ray flares as far back as 1991, or did we not have anything measuring it then?

Dunno about flares.  But the K-index is recorded back to 1858 and it's online.

Here's a link to the retrieval tool preset to the event we've been discussing:

http://www.theusner.eu/terra/aurora/kp_archive.php?year=1991&month=11&day=8&ndays=3

Regarding flares, the K-index is better than nothing.  The only way you're getting to Kp 8 or 9 is because of an Earth-directed CME, I would think.  Correct me if I'm wrong.

[Sam Warfel]

34 minutes ago, KW2P said:

Regarding flares, the K-index is better than nothing.  The only way you're getting to Kp 8 or 9 is because of an Earth-directed CME, I would think.  Correct me if I'm wrong.

You are correct in only a strong CME (almost always from a flare) can cause that extreme storming. I was just curious what sort of a flare (X10+?) caused this event. 

[KW2P]

2 hours ago, Orneno said:

You are correct in only a strong CME (almost always from a flare) can cause that extreme storming. I was just curious what sort of a flare (X10+?) caused this event. 

Very interesting. Turns out the storm in question is unusual in that it was NOT associated with a conventional flare.

Here's a paper written about it:  https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1029/2008JA013232

[Vancanneyt Sander]

6 uren geleden, Orneno zei:

Sounds like quite a show. Too bad SWL archive doesn’t go back far enough. @Vancanneyt Sanderis there any data on X-ray flares as far back as 1991, or did we not have anything measuring it then?

We didn’t have satellites with x-ray monitoring back then. I could check SWPC reports if I have an exact date to see.

[Sam Warfel]

22 minutes ago, KW2P said:

Very interesting. Turns out the storm in question is unusual in that it was NOT associated with a conventional flare.

Here's a paper written about it:  https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1029/2008JA013232

Okay, filament eruption, yeah. That’s the other way to get a CME, rarer though. Apparently though it can be just as strong!

12 minutes ago, Vancanneyt Sander said:

We didn’t have satellites with x-ray monitoring back then.

Turns out it wasn’t caused by a solar flare at all anyway 

[Vancanneyt Sander]

20 minuten geleden, Vancanneyt Sander zei:

We didn’t have satellites with x-ray monitoring back then. I could check SWPC reports if I have an exact date to see.

I have to correct myself, there where X-ray measurements but not publicaly available and the saturation level of GOES was also lower (around X12). On that same day, November 9th 1991 there was an X1 apparently

[Jesterface23]

GOES way back, https://satdat.ngdc.noaa.gov/sem/goes/data/avg/.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NO9XuP_MZoZdoyS4g-OaNYkx2P8aaFHk/view?usp=sharing

[KW2P]

33 minutes ago, Jesterface23 said:

GOES way back, https://satdat.ngdc.noaa.gov/sem/goes/data/avg/.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NO9XuP_MZoZdoyS4g-OaNYkx2P8aaFHk/view?usp=sharing

Oooh, that's a great resource.  I didn't know about that archival data.  Thanks for posting!