2015/16 Armchair Aurora watching

[GloriaSmud]

A new thread all ready for the coming Aurora season (hopefully I've included all the websites that were used before!)

Spaceweather (all space news including Aurora forecasts)
Icelandic metoffice (Aurora forecasts for Iceland)

Webcams (hopefully those not working yet will come online soon)
Icelandic webcams
Hotelranga (Icelandic Hotel)
Alaska Auroracam
Alaska aurora ‘movie
Aurora service (European webcams)
Aurora service (New Zealand/Tasmania webcams)
South Pole webcam
Abisko
Porjus1
Porjus3
ISS livestream

Recently found this one one so might/might not have Aurora ~ The University of Tromsø

Shetland webcams here, here and here.

Wikipedia entry on Aurora colours

It looks like the Tromso camera on our main webcam site might be back up, though glitchy. It's showing Monday's date and darkness, as opposed to a daylight shot from April or thereabouts.

I can't help wondering if all the cloud cover and rain on cameras in Scandinavia is our second hand crap weather from earlier this week.

New message on Abisko's website:

Aurora Sky Station/The Lights Over Lapland webcam’s electrical system is currently being upgraded and we plan to have the system up and running in mid to late November.
In the meantime we will upload new images from recent aurora displays as our photographers capture new photographs.
Thanks for your support!

Nooooooo ~ mid-late November! But I want to see lots of regular, nice Aurora pictures before then I hope those photographers are up to the task!

I agree its not ideal, Gloria, but at least it is coming back. Also, it was glitchy towards the end of last season so it's good they are fixing it. I wonder if it will be improved - we could keep our fingers crossed for live streaming.

You quite often get Abisko photos in the Spaceweather aurora gallery. It may be worth keeping tabs on that.

Shame it's so wet and miserable at Porjus tonight - I reckon we'd be getting quite a good show if there wasn't so much cloud.

'Tis all fairly quiet Aurora-wise at the moment but Spaceweather hints at the possibility of something for Aurora watchers tomorrow, when it's the autumnal equinox.

For those that keep an eye on other Icelandic things, there's been quite a lot of earthquake activity over the last few days. Might be something a-brewing in one of their many volcanoes again!

Funny you should post that too, Gloria. I've been watching the vedur earthquake reports and popping into VolcanoCafe, which seems to have moved to a new site. The >3 Richter earthquake under Myrdalsjokull is Katla - if I recall, that's one of the volcanos with a reputation for blowing her stack with not much notice (or have I mixed her up with Hekla?). It looks like things are picking up again after 6 months' peace & quiet. Do you think we should start a separate thread, or is there an older one we can revive?

Basically, my long winter evenings are now covered between the earthquake, aurora and Strictly watching.

Hekla's the one that blows with very little warning but both are overdue when it comes to erupting. And there's still the area around Bardabunga rumbling away - I noticed JonFr in his volcano blog thinks there's something still going on/about to happen there. Might be an idea to just keep an eye on things for the moment - never know whether something will occur or whether it'll all calm down again!

Promising aurora forecast/kP readings at the mo - all we need now is clear skies.

That should have been Kp, damn my tricky fingers.

Hotel Ranga webcam looks like our best bet tonight - it's dusk right now, so I can see that there's relatively little cloud cover. Porjus looks too overcast and rainy.

Hi! This had dropped off my TIO

Pseudo ~ it's all been a little quiet Aurora-wise so far. Hopefully it'll get going soon but we could do with some decent explosions from a sunspot like the one spaceweather mentions here.

I spotted an advert for Aurora flights, run by Omega Holidays in a magazine a few days ago. No staying over but just a flight from several UK airports for £219! Thought it was a bit of a bargain compared to some of the holidays advertised. There are some pictures from the flights here.

A shout out for Gloria - the chat bit on the new VolcanoCafe is reporting a likely jokulhlaup into the Skafta river from under the Vatnajokull glacier. There are also comments about the cauldrons in the glacier rapidly sinking. I wonder if we're in for some volcano excitement in Iceland.

I should have said, they are following the IMO site which is also reporting the expected jokulhlaup.

I think something volcanic's going to happen soon - the whole Vatnajokull region seems to be rocking and rolling at the moment! A report about the jokulhlaup is here but I also spotted this rather worrying report from a few weeks ago, that there might be an eruption in Bárðarbunga volcano itself soon.

There are reports on the Glacial flood on monitor.is as well. I am now also checking road.is for travel info and am constantly amazed at how quiet the roads are - which reassures me as I am going for a few days at half term without DH and will need to drive. I am hoping that there will be a high aurora forecast and clear skies but knowing my luck it will be cloudy the whole time.

Sorry that website should be icelandmonitor.mbl.is.

Good luck with the aurora, pearlgirl. We toured Iceland in high summer and even then there were stretches of road (mostly the ring road) when we didn't see another car for 10 min at a time. Just make sure you keep your fuel tank topped up and have emergency snacks etc in the car.

I am hoping we will be lucky this time - last time was so cloudy that there was no chance. I won't be far out of Reykjavik but it is the town driving that concerns me - I drove a lot on the less busy roads last time including that vast stretch of the 1 between Vik and Hofn.

Ohh la la!

Also, a 3.1 earthquake under Bardabunga this evening. Is there an Icelandic volcano thread from the Holoraun eruption that we can revive?