The aurora that didn’t happen

As many of you will have seen, there was some pretty big hype last week about a massive solar storm which would mean the Northern Lights would be visible from much of the UK: What was the reason? On Wednesday 20 March, a coronal mass ejection (CME) was launched from the Sun. CMEs are huge…

Aurora captured near Wooler, Northumerbalnd by Tony Robson.

A night of the shy aurora

Yesterday, we posted that a G2 (moderate) geomagnetic storm watch was in place for 04-05 December. This storm watch was issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency who are responsible for space weather forecasts in the US, and was the result of a recurrent coronal hole. This coronal hole was the source of a…

A disappointing night

We had such high hopes. Predictions were good, the best we’d seen for a while, and the early stats were promising but the aurora fizzled out before we had a chance to see it. Our long summer evenings played a small part here. With so few hours of darkness, catching a sighting of the aurora…

Round up of UK aurora 01-02 March

It’s been a quiet start to the new year for aurora watchers in the UK, with only a single amber alert being issued in the whole of January and February combined. Perhaps this isn’t unsurprising considering that we are currently heading into a solar minimum, a drop in solar activity resulting from the Sun’s 11-year cycle. But, as reported…

The October 25th Aurora Red Alert

On October 25th, the UK received an astonishing early Christmas present. At 17:48 UTC (18:48 BST), AuroraWatch UK issued an extremely rare red alert, indicating that it may have been possible to see the aurora from the entirety of the UK. There were in fact two distinct periods where geomagnetic activity went above red alert thresholds:…

CME drives hidden aurora

Strong geomagnetic activity was recorded during the night of 13-14 October, resulting in an amber alert being sent out to our subscribers. High activity lasted for several hours and nearly reached our threshold for a red alert (falling just short of the required 200nT, maxing out at 190nT). The activity was the result of a…

Round up of UK aurora 25-26 Sept

It’s been a great couple of days for aurora viewing in the UK. In our second aurora round up, we overview the geomagnetic activity that occurred over the last couple of nights (25-26th Sept) in the UK, along with plenty of pictures from our followers and what we think was the cause. AuroraWatch UK alert status On both…

Coronal hole drives recent aurora

This is the first blog post from Dan Billett, a Ph.D. student in Lancaster’s Space and Planetary Physics group. Dan has just joined the AuroraWatch UK team and is interested in public outreach so you will, no doubt, be hearing more from him in the future! — Nathan. On Monday 5th September, NOAA’s Space Weather…

Round up of UK aurora 01-02 Sept

In this first, of what will hopefully be a regular occurence, we are going to “round up” the auroral activity witnessed from the UK last night (01-02 Sept). Below, we’ve collected some info on the auroral display, such as what caused it and where it was seen from. Enjoy! AuroraWatch UK alert status Through the…