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The fast solar wind stream from a southern coronal hole continues, and we continue to benefit from its impact on Earth’s magnetic field!

*Aurora emerging over the trees* | Purchase Print

The aurora was a bit brighter last night than the night before, but it didn’t quite have the same energy or structure, and color while we were watching. We watched for about half-an-hour while the bands to the north tightened, brightened, and moved southward over our heads.

*Aurora behind the trees – nice pinks under the band* | Purchase Print

*More aurora overhead and the Big Dipper* | Purchase Print

As I’m writing this, the solar wind speed remains high. But it will most likely start to drop before nightfall. Still, the predicted 3 Kp index is still 2 or 3 tonight, which is more than necessary for Fairbanks. It’s the atmospheric weather that looks slightly less promising now. Clouds and light snow are expected by early morning. Still have a good chance early on though! Monday and Tuesday nights look like more snow and clouds for Fairbanks.

Get my 2023 Alaska Wall Calendar or Aurora Calendar here!

In other news, today is an exciting day! Why, you ask? Because it’s bucket bath day. Our plumbing froze up about a month ago. After getting thawed out twice, we needed another solution to get water to the house. We could just live dry-cabin style, we both have before, but are worried the septic lines will freeze up. So we now have limited running water in the house. Kind of. Well, we did. There’s a problem with the connection with the pressure tank to our 20 gallon drum. This was getting to be rather stupid and expensive, so we had called a plumber to come on Friday. Then Cat tested positive for COVID on Wednesday. So, we had to cancel the plumber. We’re both doing good and rolling with the punches. It seems we are both on the mend from being only very mildly ill. Today we pump more water into our containers so we can actually (kind of) bathe. Every two days.

In really nice news, it’s almost starting to feel spring-like in the day, and it’s been beautiful! (Night is a sharp reminder that it is not spring yet.)

Aurora Borealis Blog