Talk about the Mother of all Aurora's, on Mothers Day weekend, no less, the strongest storm yet in all of my lifetime, since 1989. These experiences are amplified by getting to share this with the family on another exciting road trip!
David never went to sleep on Friday May 10th 2024, as that night he was busy setting up different compositions and being surprised that the corona went overhead and literally all around us while located near Cleveland, Ohio!
We were a little bit nervous that we were going to miss the beginning, of this storm, as the sunset was nearing just as we were arriving, but we made it, just in time!!!
As soon as we arrived David and DC went to scope out the park. While I stayed back with Daniel and prepared the van for bedtime! After we put up the sunshade, rotated the front chairs, and lowered the bed, we were ready to join the others outside and witness this amazing once in a lifetime show. After a few family photos and hanging out DC, Daniel and I were ready to get back inside the nice warm sprinter van and go to bed.
After a very long "night", for David, the sun started to rise and so did the Carr boys! Daddy came back to the van to let us know that the northern lights carried on ALL NIGHT LONG AND INTO THE MORNING! We walked around the beach and played at the playground for a little bit, before we drove 0.2 miles to have a delicious breakfast at Fairport Family Restaurant. What a fabulous meal we had together before we hit the road to go home!
FUN NERD FACTS: About how BIG this storm was!!!!!!!
What was the most intense geomagnetic storm, aka Aurora or Northern Lights, in history called?
The Carrington Event of 1859. The Carrington event was the strongest storm in recorded history. Richard Carrington was a British Astronomer who observed this Aurora. It created strong Auroral displays that were reported globally and caused sparking and even fires in multiple telegraph stations.
What does KP stand for and mean?
KP is derived from the German word Planetarische Kennziffer which means "Planitary index". It's one of the metrics we use to understand our chances of seeing the Northern lights, as it is a 3 hour average across the planet, it provides good general guidance but it's not a perfect metric.
This HISTORICAL Aurora that was observed by many on May 10th 2024, hit a KP 9 which is the MAXIMUM of the scale.
Solar Wind Speed reached just over 1000km/s during this storm, this weekend. Typically when we have seen Aurora's, the Solar Wind Speeds are half of that.
We also look at another very important metric called BZ.
If the BZ is positive or North their is a slim chance you will see an Aurora, it's strongly preferred if the BZ is negative or South. This metric is kind of an indicator of the Earth shielding itself from external inputs. Usually when we have seen an Aurora the BZ is around -10.... This storm the BZ was about 5x higher than "normal" at -50.
Lastly we look into Hemispheric Power....not "Harry Potter's powers!"
The HP is an estimate of the energy of ALL electrons precipitating into a hemisphere.
Usually you want the Hemispheric power to be greater than >50. For this Historical Aurora the HP was 345GW.
Check out this timelapse of the "northern lights" that we took, from sunset to sunrise!
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