Geomagnetic storm for a change.....

[Labradorlover]

X Class flare heading directly to Earth, arriving tomorrow. Possible auroras, if the cloud gets out the way and it's dark enough.......trying to be optomistic .
And..it's not rained here for 2 whole days!!!!!

Will watch out for alerts- thanks for the heads up lablover.
Rain is plaguing us at the moment. But it looks like a dry day tomorrow - woohoo!

Thanks for the link OYBBK, one day I'll get round to figuring out how to do them.

:)

remove the spaces in the following line next to the square brackets (on the inside of them:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/ met office
and that'll give you a link.

I've been keeping an eye out - but nothing yet. If it arrives this evening, I'm praying for clear skies!

Got an amber alert :) of course here it is raining.

Almost clear skies, hardly any moon, possibly just about dark enough a 1am ( not yet dark here ) , Space weather says Kp 5, Aurorawatch is yellow.........I want to go to bed.....but......but.....I might just miss something.

Actually should just revel in the amazingness of clear skies

I hope you see something :)

I feel a little like a foreign language student on this thread....

Is the gist of it tha there is a half decent chance of catching sight of the aurora borrealis (?sp) at about 1am Sun morning?

If so, how far south in the UK, and do i look north just guessing

Thanks for any help!

I also have another rain related metereological question if anyone's up for it...?

I'll take the rain question :) I don't think there's a very high chance of much of the uk of seeing the aurora tonight.

Thanks bad kitten

I understand the water cycle.

I understand that raindrop formation has something to do with electrostatic chargegetting a bit vague here as well as condensation at a (colder) altitude

But what determines the size of the droplets? I'm thinking about the whopping ones we've had this summer in cloudbursts.

Is it to do with altitude or impurities or electric charge or something else?

There must be some kind of upper limit of surface area/volume ratio?

Thanks x

Timetosmile. There is a small chance of seeing the aurora, probably faintly on the horizon in a Northerly direction. The further North you are the better, until, at this time of year the lack of proper darkness at night,( the sun being just below the horizon ) interferes with being able to see any aurora. I reckoned about 1am for me ( Edinburgh ), as that's about the darkest time.
It's not a huge CME, ( energy lobbed from the sun at us ) but some similar ones earlier in the year did cause aurora sightings in Northern England.
You also need to be away from Light pollution to view, which because I am slightly mad, has caused me to drive miles around Scotland to get away from town/clouds/fog.

I've seen it twice. Once was amazing, tonight is not shaping up to be that.

aurorawatch.lancs.ac.uk has a graph. If it has tall red columns get very excited! There's lots of info too.
spaceweather.com is also good for info and early predictions of geomagnetic storms.

Hope that helps

Blimey, that's a question! A lot of the rain this summer has been convective in nature, where warm moist air rises until it can rise no more. I think it is because when,the rain drop condenses it then gets caught in an updraft which allows more moisture to condense around it ( or perhaps drops coalesce together) as it rises until the updraft can no longer support the weight of the drop.
However, I could be wrong on that!

Lablover you are a person after my own heart ( fondly remembers night after night of driving around trying to find an area out of the fog in order to be able to look at a newly discovered comet)

Lab, I'm in one of the least light polluted areas of scotland, used to be where you are. Thanks for this I will be out tonight looking.

I remember seeing Hale Bopp from the window of a 747 on the way to Hong Kong and insisting that all the passengers have a shot of the windows on our side of the plane, much to the disgust of the cabin crew ......honestly, I didn't get a flight past the Himylayas just to see a comet

I would like to convert the world to the mad hobby of aurora hunting. Almost called DD Aurora, before I became aware of the Disney character....

I saw the aurora faintly on the horizon on a very cold clear night in Wiltshire as a girl, and properly when I flew over Greenland on the way to Vancouver in 2002. Breathtaking.

:o was it a good view?

Clear skies here, have seen aurora twice down here now.

Well, I didn't even get in my car to go hunting. Due to all the cloud we've had recently, I think I'd forgotten that there was still some light in the sky past midnight. It's got to be better conditions and activity for me to justify bundling a sleeping child into the car ......
There was a report of aurora seen in Biggar, ( South of here ) but I think from the description on the Aurorawatch facebook page, that it was very, very faint.

IT'S RED! IT'S RED! IT'S FECKING RED!!!!!!!!
aururawatch.lancs.ac.uk

If it stays anywhere near like this, I'll be driving all over the place tonight, although forecast says clear

hmm too excited to spell aurora......try again....

aurorawatch.lancs.ac.uk

yay you linked :)

Fingers crossed!!!!!!

Here's hoping it doesn't subside before dark!
Can't get spaceweather.com to check on the auroral oval - it seems to be off line.
helios.swpc.noaa.gov/ovation/ has a graphic showing the likely auroral oval. I don't find it as easy to interpret as the one on spaceweather.

Think Spacewearhter was having too much traffic earlier as the US was in darkness and aurora apparently seen as South as California. All going a bit quiet. Agree about Ovation, it's % possibility.

So Labradorlover anything I could see here (slightly west of Edinburgh) tonight?
Please reply in words of one syllable