Northern Lights

 This came this morning from Andy Rudin:

On Monday, the sun launched a plume of charged particles toward Earth that space weather forecasters predicted might set off a stellar show of auroras across the northern United States on Thursday night. But forecasters are now walking back that prediction, as the incoming geomagnetic storm appears to be less intense than anticipated.

The National Weather Service’s Space Weather Prediction Center has downgraded the expected strength of the geomagnetic storm from “strong” (Level 3) to “minor” (Level 1) through Friday.

Andy

If you were looking for the Northern Lights here at Joe's Pond last night, I doubt that you saw anything except dense darkness. The sky was still very overcast the last time I checked and I think remained so all night. I guess we'll have to wait for another solar burst. But then, this is 2020, so I have to wonder what made the National Weather Service people  think even a geomagnetic storm would go as predicted. It seems like nothing is "normal" this year and there are unexpected twists and turns that serve to befuddle and irritate, occasionally amuse because the antics are so ridiculous, but most often astonish because it's all so hard to believe. Like we've stepped onto the set of a really bad movie. I'm glad we've finished writing our history book. This year would be hard to explain.