St. Patrick's Day geomagnetic storm produces aurora visible from Blacksburg

By: miker on: Wed., Mar. 18, 2015 10:33 PM EDT (12569 Reads)

The largest geomagnetic storm of the current period of solar cycle maximum struck on March 17, 2015. The Dst index dove below -200 nT and very active aurora were reported from surprisingly low latitudes in the U.S. A meteorlogy student at Virginia Tech, Alex Thornton, went to Bald Knob (on a mountain near Blacksburg) and took this time-exposure picture looking to the north at about 10:30 pm local time. The picture shows greenish-yellow auroral glow in the clear sky and clouds silhouetted against the glow.

The storm was rated G4 ('severe') on the five-level NOAA space weather scale. Kp reached 8. The Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) held a press conference while the storm was in progress, see http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/news/swpc-press-conference-g4-activity

For a spectacular edge-on view of the St. Patrick's day aurora from the ISS in orbit at an altitude of 400 km see

http://www.universetoday.com/119466/powerful-magnetic-storm-produces-beautiful-aurora-around-the-world/

To retrospectively view the record of Dst since 1985 using an interactive tool developed by Bharat Kunduri while a graduate student at Virginia Tech see

http://d3spaceweather.herokuapp.com/

St. Patrick's Day geomagnetic storm produces aurora visible from Blacksburg

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