Skunked (!) - October 18, 2025
- Eric Bleicher
- Oct 19
- 3 min read
The snow is slowly creeping toward Southcentral Alaska, and the weather continues to be a challenge!
This week we had chances from multiple CMEs and another high speed stream from a coronal hole to potentially catch some aurora. But, with the weather being poor every night, Saturday was the only chance we had to get on the road. I debated a couple of options last night, especially given the storm conditions that came Friday night. Kenai Lake has been on my bucket list to the south, along with Portage Valley. I also thought on going further north, continuing my time along the Glenn Highway between Palmer & Glennallen. It ended up looking like the best chance, with the longest window (before another storm rolls in), was out toward Matanuska Glacier, so I set out from the Anchorage area at 515pm.
I settled in at Long Lake around 745pm, anticipating a sudden IMF enhancement to hit Earth soon, and with some excitement since G2 storm conditions were flagged on the way out.
As you'll see though, I got skunked all night long!
A combination of things happened which led to me only seeing a very hindered bit of minor activity around 115am - first though, we can observe the GOES magnetometer (R) and the blue line, representing a more global indication of stored/released energy that can produce aurora.
This had dropped for a good amount of the day, but without a source to trigger a release, dipolarization (the upward movement) won't occur.
If you look where the big upward movement is on the red line (East Coast), that was a big substorm Friday!
What NOAA/SWPC Data Showed Me
Here on the right, you'll see a snapshot of what the NOAA / SWPC solar wind data looked like when I was out. The red box reflects the time frame I'll discuss here.
About an hour before sunset, we saw storm conditions for a short period. Where you see 'G2 Threshold Here' marked, and the red dots on the graph, the Bz is considered good for aurora potentially brightening.
What supports that is the Bt (black dots at top of graph) also being elevated - we essentially see great fundamental configuration of aurora brightening, and potentially creeping to mid-latitudes, in these settings.
But where problem begins is in how those red dots (Bz) go above the center line (0), and get next to the Bt readings most of the night. This means the solar wind has a polarity(+), hindering aurora development. *Think of Bz and Earth as magnets: if Earth has a + oriented field on the day side, you need southward Bz (-) to produce a connection conducive with energy releasing that can potentially produce aurora. Fundamentally, if Earth on the day side is + polarity, and Bz on the night side is + polarity, the two would have a repelling type effect as if you were trying to connect two ++ magnets. Where you get the magnetic connection leading to energy release & potential aurora is when that Bz is negative.
This meant around 130am, after waiting it out from 730pm, we just didn't have the goods on our night side to see anything. My guess is that a drop in Bz, given the stored energy showing via GOES, would have been the 'trigger' needed for us to see a substorm, but we just didn't have it this time!
Looking into this next week, I'll be eyeing more openings in the weather and monitoring conditions!
In the meantime, if you're looking for a short tutorial on basic editing of aurora images, click below!
