AURORAS IN THE USA: 24 10-2011

AURORAS IN THE USA: A coronal mass ejection (CME) hit Earth on Oct. 24th at approximately 1800 UT (2:00 pm EDT).
The impact strongly compressed Earth's magnetic field, directly exposing
geosynchronous satellites to solar wind plasma, and sparked an intense geomagnetic storm. As night fell over North America, auroras spilled across the Canadian border into the contiguous United States.

"Wow, wow, wow! These were the best Northern Lights I've seen since 2004,"
says Shawn Malone, who took this picture from the shores of Lake Superior in Michigan:



"The auroras filled the sky in every direction--even to the south," he says.

Indeed, the display spread all the way down to Arkansas. "When I saw the alert,
I ran outside and immediately saw red auroras," reports Brian Emfinger from the
city of Ozark. "Within a few minutes the auroras went crazy! Unbelievable!"

Auroras were seen or photographed in more than half of all US states including Alabama,
Wisconsin, New Mexico, Tennessee, Missouri, Illinois, Nebraska, Kentucky, North Carolina, Indiana, Oklahoma, Kansas, Iowa, Maryland, New York, Montana, Ohio, Colorado,
Pennsylvania, Washington, Minnesota, Maine, Michigan, Oregon, Arkansas and California. Many observers, especially in the deep south, commented on the pure red color
of the lights they saw. These rare all-red auroras sometimes appear during intense geomagnetic storms. They occur some 300 to 500 km above Earth's surface and
are not yet fully understood.

The storm is subsiding now.
Nevertheless, high-latitude sky watchers should remain alert for auroras
as Earth's magnetic field continues to reverberate from the CME impact.
Aurora alerts: text,
voice.
Randy Halverson Image taken:Oct. 24, 2011
Location: Cross Plains, WI
Details: On 10-24-2011
the forecast was for storm level Aurora displays. My son and I went out
that night west of Madison, WI to shoot some timelapse and take stills
of them. At one point they were so bright they lit up the ground, it
will be hard to edit the timelapse because they were almost over exposed
at that point. Many more pics on my site.
http://dakotalapse.com/?p=581


...umm...GREEN for GO...dixie dean posts a lot about Thunderbirds...
Thunderbirds Are Go!...and what was dixie dean saying about,
"drawing a line, a RED LINE"...

Tobias Billings
Image taken:Oct. 24, 2011
Location: Independence, MO USA
Details:I stepped out
of the car and almost passed out. The pillars of light were amazing! I'm
used to a constant glow from the city lights during the evenings, but
could tell that this was something that couldn't man-made.


Steve Yezek
Image taken: Oct. 24, 2011
Location: Rock Falls, Iowa, USA
Details: These were some of the brightest and deepest colors I've seen in many years
over Northern Iowa. They were taken about 15 miles northeast of Mason City
near Rock Falls Iowa. 1600 ASA, between 5-15sec exposure. Tonights show
was awesome. These were taken around 9pm CDT.. By the way no editing was
done to any of these photos...
[

Shut the hell up about the U.S.A.