Meteorological Spring
(March 1)
"The spring season associated with the vernal equinox, called astronomical spring, happens on or around March 20 in the Northern Hemisphere, but meteorologists
recognize March 1 as the first day of meteorological spring, which is based on annual temperature cycles and the Gregorian calendar."
NASA
Spring is Aurora Season
March:
" What are the signs of spring? They are as familiar as a blooming Daffodil, a songbird at dawn, a surprising shaft of warmth from the afternoon sun.
And, oh yes, don't forget the aurora borealis.
Spring is aurora season. For reasons not fully understood by scientists, the weeks around the vernal equinox are prone to Northern Lights. Canadians walking their dogs after dinner, Scandinavians popping out to the sauna, Alaskan Huskies on the Iditarod trail—all they have to do is look up and behold, green curtains of light dancing across the night sky. Spring has arrived!
This is a bit of a puzzle. Auroras are caused by solar activity, but the Sun doesn't know what season it is on Earth. Yet it seemed to know on March 1st when these lights erupted over Tromso, Norway"science.nasa.gov/...
The Daily Bucket is a nature refuge where we amicably discuss animals, weather, climate, soil, plants, waters and note life’s patterns. We invite you to share in the comments what you see in your own part of the world.
"An aurora (plural: auroras or aurorae),[a] sometimes referred to as polar lights, northern lights (aurora borealis) or southern lights (aurora australis), is a natural light display in the Earth's sky, predominantly seen in the high-latitude regions(around the Arctic and Antarctic).
Auroras are produced when the magnetosphere is sufficiently disturbed by the solar wind that the trajectories of charged particles in both solar wind and magnetospheric plasma, mainly in the form of electrons and protons, precipitate them into the upper atmosphere (thermosphere/exosphere) due to Earth's magnetic field, where their energy is lost.
The resulting ionization and excitation of atmospheric constituents emits light of varying color and complexity. The form of the aurora, occurring within bands around both polar regions, is also dependent on the amount of acceleration imparted to the precipitating particles. Precipitating protons generally produce optical emissions as incident hydrogen atoms after gaining electrons from the atmosphere. Proton auroras are usually observed at lower latitudes".en.m.wikipedia.org/...
Occurrence of terrestrial auroras
"Most auroras occur in a band known as the "auroral zone",[4] which is typically 3° to 6° wide in latitude and between 10° and 20° from the geomagnetic poles at all local times (or longitudes), most clearly seen at night against a dark sky. A region that currently displays an aurora is called the "auroral oval", a band displaced towards the night side of the Earth.[5] Early evidence for a geomagnetic connection comes from the statistics of auroral observations. Elias Loomis (1860), and later Hermann Fritz (1881)[6] and S. Tromholt (1882)[7] in more detail, established that the aurora appeared mainly in the auroral zone. Day-to-day positions of the auroral ovals are posted on the Internet.[8]
In northern latitudes, the effect is known as the aurora borealis or the northern lights. The former term was coined by Galileo in 1619, from the Roman goddess of the dawn and the Greek name for the north wind.[9]The southern counterpart, the aurora australis or the southern lights, has features almost identical to the aurora borealis and changes simultaneously with changes in the northern auroral zone.[10] The Aurora Australis is visible from high southern latitudes in Antarctica, Chile, Argentina, New Zealand, and Australia.
A geomagnetic storm causes the auroral ovals (north and south) to expand, and bring the aurora to lower latitudes. The instantaneous distribution of auroras ("auroral oval")[4] is slightly different, being centered about 3–5° nightward of the magnetic pole, so that auroral arcs reach furthest toward the equator when the magnetic pole in question is in between the observer and the Sun. The aurora can be seen best at this time, which is called magnetic midnight".en.m.wikipedia.org/…
"The colors most often associated with the aurora borealis are pink,green, yellow, blue, violet, and occasionally orange and white. Typically, when the particles collide with oxygen, yellow and greenare produced. Interactions with nitrogen produce red, violet, and occasionally blue colors."
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In the U.S.:
"Commonly referred to as the northern lights, these displays of light can only be seen from under the auroral zone, which stretches as far north in North America as you can go, and includes the upper-most states in the continental U.S. To see the northern lights yourself, you'll need northern latitude, a clear sky, and ..."
What's up in space
www.spaceweather.com
"THE SOLAR WIND CONTINUES TO BLOW: For the 3rd day in a row, Earth is inside a stream of solar wind flowing from a wide hole in the sun's atmosphere. With wind speeds topping 550 km/s (1.2 million mph), polar geomagnetic unrest and Arctic auroras are likely on March 2nd. "
Aurora Alerts: SMS text, email.
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"SPOTLIGHT ON GREEN NEWS AND VIEWS"
IS POSTED EVERY SATURDAY ON THE DAILY KOS FRONT PAGE. IT'S A GREAT WAY TO CATCH UP ON DIARIES YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED.
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(What's up in your skies?)