First off, my editor (also known as my wife) doesn’t think the Aurora Borealis deserves its own blog post (says she who has seen it in Alaska previously), but I’ll let you (our faithful readers) decide.
My excitement and our search for the Northern Lights started a few days before we reached the arctic circle when a Norwegian told us about Aurora Borealis forecasting apps. Of course, my immediate reaction was “Nice! There’s an app for that!” And, as anyone who knows me well can imagine, I immediately downloaded it and began to obsess and worry about the data and forecasts.
Upon opening the app, I learned all about the KP Index; “Kp is an excellent indicator of disturbances in the Earth's magnetic field and is used to decide whether geomagnetic alerts and warnings need to be issued.” And related to the Aurora, it’s basically a scale of 1 to 9 used to create a probability of viewing the lights based on the KP plus weather/cloud forecasts for the area. So I immediately broke out the spreadsheets and started tracking the trends… well, at least I wanted to, until I remembered I’m retired and that seemed too much like work! That said, the app had forecasts and maps with overlays that I could obsess over. Here are a couple examples
Anyway, the first couple nights I had the app the index was at a 5 with a probability of 50%. Of course we were still pretty far south around the Geiranger Fjord so I didn’t have my hopes up. Poking my head out the door of our AirBnb at midnight I saw some bright lights and some weird streaks in the sky that I thought might be clouds. Turns out I was seeing the start of an aurora, but it was too faint to see any colors with the naked eye. If I had been patient and knew what to look for I might’ve seen more. Nonetheless the camera caught these images:
A couple days later we traveled to Tromsø, deep in the arctic circle. However, the weather and more specifically, the cloud cover, wasn’t cooperating! The index was still around a 5, meaning good solar activity, but the probability was only 20%. Shit! AND, the forecast for the cloud cover seemed to be getting worse the next few days. Now, I was getting worried since we had only planned to be this for north for 3 days and if we had been here the week prior, we had heard it was some amazing views. Ugh!
Needless to say, the next night when we had our Northern Lights “chase” tour (which, btw, is not inexpensive) I did not have my hopes up. That night around 7:30p, we got in a sprinter van with 20 other people and took off in search of a break in the clouds.
First stop was around 8pm at the base of a mountain that the guide says usually parts the clouds. We waited about an hour and things weren't looking good… too many clouds. We loaded up and drove south chasing a break in the band of clouds that seems to be wider in the south, according to the radar. We drove about an hour south with the driver and guide stopping a couple times to check if they could see any stars… nope. Throughout the night, our driver hds been in contact with other groups which were all striking out as well. So around 10pm (or 22:00 here in Norway) they made the call to head North East toward the Finland border. The guide announces… “It looks like it’s going to be a long night. We’re going to be driving for about 2 hours, so feel free to sleep. We’ll wake you when we get there.” Oh yes, those were the exact words I was hoping to hear.
Anyhow, a couple hours and at least a hundred kilometers later, we were near the northern border with Finland and the guide says “Wakey, wakey. We think we have a good break in the clouds and may be able to start seeing the aurora”. We all pile out into a cold 40F night with cameras in hand and… wait for nature to put on a show. Ultimately, it did not disappoint. It started small and similar to what I had seen before. I tried to capture a video which didn’t do it justice. Then it grew and became more pronounced and you could see the green colors with your eyes. This series of photos shows the progression:
As it got brighter and brighter the waves of light started to “dance” as the light moves through the sky. The camera set to a long exposure really does the best job of capturing the stunning beauty which you can see for yourself in these photos.
By the time we got back to the hotel at 2:30a in the morning we were exhausted. But, having just checked off one of our bucket list lifetime experiences it was hard to fall asleep with lights still dancing in your thoughts. Also, I have to say, paying for the “chase” was more than worth it! Especially, when you have a driver who knows the local geography and can make educated guesses as to what nature might have in store for you.
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