Northern Lights Over Newfoundland - Newfoundsander

The Northern Lights have always fascinated me. Colourful lights dancing across the night sky, who wouldn’t want to see that?!

I, like many people, always thought I had to be far up North to see them, the ‘Northern Lights’ name certainly implies it. Because visiting the North is quite expensive, I decided I was going to put some effort into seeing the Northern Lights right here in Newfoundland, the place I know best.

After some research I was able to confirm that even though auroras are more frequent in the North, the show could certainly be seen as far South as I was, at my latitude just above St. John’s.

In fact, recent years have offered about 20 to 40 opportunities per year to see the aurora borealis, you just have to know when they appear and you have to be lucky enough to have a clear dark sky on the northern horizon.

There are several clues that help you predict a show of the Northern Lights, and they often line up like this:

1. The sun shows its spots.
2. A spot erupts, causing a CME (Coronal Mass Ejection).
3. The CME travels to earth, this may take 1 or 2 days.
4. The CME arrives on earth, igniting a geomagnetic storm.
5. The show begins.

Sometimes a CME impact isn’t even required to see the Northern Lights, in those cases they show up as the result of incoming solar wind.

Spaceweather.com is a website that I check every day to see if there’s any news on clues 1, 2 and 3.

After that, around the time the CME is expected on earth, I check the Space Weather Prediction Centre’s 30 Minute Aurora Forecast and the Planetary K-index. When the Aurora Forecast shows the green light extending over Newfoundland it means there’s a chance you can see something. As you can imagine it helps to be as far north as possible: Middle Cove is better than St. John’s, Twillingate is better than Bonavista, and L’Anse aux Meadows beats all other places on the island.

Three years ago tonight, there was a clear sky forecast during a strong geomagnetic storm (Kp=7), so I drove out to Cape St. Francis and hiked to the Biscan Cove viewpoint to get a nice and dark view. The harvest moon was shining brightly from the south so I hardly needed a flashlight to find my way on the trail. After a short walk I saw a vague green light on the northern horizon, at first I was very surprised, then very happy, I was looking at the aurora borealis!

Aurora Borealis on the horizon – Biscan Cove Path

It was apparent to me I was missing part of the show behind the trees, so I climbed further up the trail to get to a viewpoint overlooking the cove. On my way there, I saw streams of light shooting up from the vague green band:

Aurora Borealis, dancing through the night sky – Biscan Cove Path

On top of the hill I put away my camera and called Marije, I had promised to wake her up and tell her all about the lights if and when I saw them. Now wide awake, she was very excited and wanted to see them too, but alas, the show was brief and already subsiding. After the call I continued down to the main viewpoint overlooking the cove, and the horizon lit up one last time:

Aurora Borealis over Cape St. Francis – Biscan Cove Path

At the end of the show I had a big grin on my face as I quietly walked back to the trailhead through the dark forest.

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• newfoundsander
• September 29, 2015
• Astronomy, East Coast Trail
• Biscan Cove Path, Cape St. Francis, Night Hiking, Retrospective
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