I’ve always been a bit of a weather watcher. I like walking in the hills, so knowing the meaning of changes in clouds, or a shift in the wind, is useful for planning a day out to avoid a soaking or getting caught in a blizzard.

Since moving to a designated ‘dark skies’ area in the Yorkshire Dales I’ve been paying a bit more attention to the more esoteric subject of space weather. Not long after I moved here I was lucky enough to see the northern lights. Not a strong show, more of a glimmer, but in a place where there are no cities lighting up the night sky it is possible to see that glimmer.

I have an ‘AuroraWatch’ app on my mobile ‘phone and this week it’s been going positively crazy giving me red alerts for possible auroras. Unfortunately, it’s also been cloudy so it wasn’t possible to see the aurora that was presumably happening in the sky above, which made me think this was something of a metaphor for life. There can be multicolour dancing curtains of light but we’re unable to see them because of clouds that are outside our control. We just have to believe in the lights even if we can’t see them.

Maybe it’s just quirky me, but even finding out about the causes of the aurora that I can’t see, is fun in itself. The Met Office has a space weather website which boldly announced this week:

“Space Weather Forecast Headline: Chance of Strong flares (R3 - Strong radio blackouts) throughout. Chance of G3/storm intervals throughout, but most likely Day 2-3 (07-08 Nov).”

Radio blackouts! Goodness. In this day and age with our dependence on satellites the systems we rely on are vulnerable to blasts of solar radiation, as is the electricity grid. Going down a space weather rabbit hole I’ve discovered that in 1859 the famous ‘Carrington Event’ caused sparking and fires in telegraph stations. Heaven knows (pun intended) what would happen these days.

Sometimes the night sky is clear of cloud, revealing astonishing things. On the 1st of November there was a report in the BBC about a photographer from the Lake District who had been waiting patiently for the right cloud-free conditions to take a picture of Comet Lemmon (link to the story below); and the Orionid meteor shower has been sending shooting stars through the atmosphere for the past few weeks.

Are you a night sky and space weather watcher? Most people live in cities and so have a limited view of what happens after dark, but even then it is possible to enjoy the northern lights vicariously by watching webcams in locations, such as Shetland or Lapland, where auroras are a regular event.

Rowan on the Moor

A Moodscope member

Comet Lemmon captured above Yorkshire Dales: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c7400vn37e1o

Met Office Space Weather: https://weather.metoffice.gov.uk/specialist-forecasts/space-weather