#northern or southern?

[azulasmommyissues]

[floridagrowngirl]

Tornado touchdown, Northern Colorado, 2015

[mellauri]

May 23 2024, Bellingham WA

[dduane]

Today's auroral shenanigans

Relatively speaking, yesterday night (May 11/12) was a bit of "not much" for aurora-watchers, compared to the night of the 10th/11th. (Which, to be fair, was a most unusual event, and it wouldn't be surprising if it wasn't equaled for a long, long time.)

Nonetheless, the Sun continues to be in an interesting mood at the moment... specifically the big sunspot region AR3664, which is the one responsible for the auroral extravaganza of May 10th. You can just see it in this next image, getting ready to rotate away from us around the Sun's rightward limb.

(For those interested in scale: that complex of sunspots is about fifteen times the diameter of the Earth. You could drop the whole planet into the middle of the biggest one and lose it. A timelapse video of its growth is over here at YouTube, if you're interested.)

As AR3664 continues to spit out CMEs and flares, the NOAA has issued a geomagnetic storm watch for today, tonight and tomorrow—with the suggestion that conditions like those of the night of the 10th may in the relatively short term be about to repeat themselves.

This is a "watch" rather than a "warning," reflecting some uncertainty over exactly how the various incoming coronal mass injections are likely to behave on reaching Earth orbit. (Also, the CMEs aren't being aimed straight at us, but off to one side as the sunspot region rotates further and further toward the sun's edge: so this adds somewhat to the unpredictability of it all.)

The animation below comes from the SOHO spacecraft's LASCO C3 coronagraph instrument. It starts on May 10th and runs through until early on the morning of May 12th. You can see the newest incoming CMEs right at the end of it.

(BTW, I think the two bright objects to right and left of the Sun are probably comets passing through, as LASCO images normally mask out any planets that would be in view.)

Anyway, as for what this means for auroral activity tonight? It's tough to tell as yet. The planetary K index (which expresses the relative strength of geomagnetic storms) has dropped back down into near-baseline levels at the moment.

But when those new CMEs and the solar wind associated with them hits the atmosphere, things may change suddenly.

We'll soon see...

And an afterthought: AR3664 will soon be off around the Sun's edge, and invisible to us. It'll be interesting to see what happens to it after that.

The Sun takes 27 days to rotate, as a whole: the poles take longer, the equatorial regions a shorter time. In a couple of weeks or less, what will greet us, rotating around toward Earth's POV on that left-hand side? Will AR3664 have dissolved and vanished away, as sunspot groups so often do... or grown even bigger?

ETA 1, 12 May 2024, 1820 UT: Like a kitty coughing up hairball after cosmic hairball, AR has popped yet another X-class flare.

ETA 2, May 13 2024, 0100 IDT / 0000 UT: New G3 storm warning dropped.

[visuac]

disc rot

[the-northern-continent]

To me it 100% makes sense that the Inquisitor and Rook aren’t interested in blood magic.

When someone who grew up in Ferelden imagines a blood mage, they’re picturing their burnout cousin who brews moonshine and has punched a cop.

Northern Marchers, or anyone else who grew up within spitting distance of Tevinter, are picturing Mitch McConnell.

[incognitopolls]

We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.

[glassy-eyed-poet]

Katara never blamed Zuko for her mother's death, she was mad because he betrayed her trust at Ba Sing Se. She was literally about to use the special Northern Water Tribe healing water to heal his scar, the same water she used to save Aang from dying. My girl has every single right to not trust Zuko.

[h0rifix]

"𝔱𝔥𝔢𝔰𝔢 𝔠𝔯𝔬𝔰𝔰𝔢𝔰 𝔞𝔩𝔩 𝔬𝔳𝔢𝔯 𝔪𝔶 𝔟𝔬𝔡𝔶

𝔯𝔢𝔪𝔦𝔫𝔡 𝔪𝔢 𝔬𝔣 𝔴𝔥𝔬 𝔦 𝔲𝔰𝔢𝔡 𝔱𝔬 𝔟𝔢."

- 𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐥 𝐜𝐚𝐢𝐧. (𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟐). 'family tree’

[artthatgivesmefeelings]

Master of Belmonte (Spanish, Aragon, active ca. 1460–90) St Michael Defeating the Devil, ca.1450-1500 The Cloisters, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

[15-lizards]

Ten million ways you could contextualize this but for simplicity: Sansa and The Faith in some way

[heartnosekid]

socal northern lights | patrickc_la on ig

[fyanimaldiversity]

Begging you for some pinnipeds any pinnipeds please

Piebald Northern fur seal

Atypical colored Antarctic fur seal! With the orange, white, and grey they look calico.

Leucistic Antarctic fur seal

Interesting gang of Antarctic fur seal, one is leucistic and one almost looks brindle?

Leucistic southern elephant seal

Northern fur seal labeled as albino and partial albino (leucistic?) by some sources. NOAA says albino and they are experts.

Albino harbor seal

Albino ringed seal

Melanistic grey seal

[mellauri]

y’all mind if i *sprints directly into the forest and no one ever hears from me ever again*

[frachive]