Most of us in Hawaii have never seen auroras — northern or southern lights caused by solar flares. Normally, one needs to be in high-latitude locations such as Alaska to see them.
It would take an unusually powerful geomagnetic storm to cause such a light display this close to the equator. Amazingly, that happened in 1859. Richard Carrington, a British astronomer, observed and kept a record of it.
Called the Carrington Event, the light show was visible in Hawaii and even the northern Caribbean, said Walter Steiger in 1957, when he was an associate professor of physics at the University of Hawaii.
It disrupted telegraph service around the world, shocked technicians and even set some of their papers on fire. It would do even more damage to our modern electronics today.
“These rare cases of tropical auroras present a spectacle of great beauty and mystery to dwellers in nonpolar latitudes,” said scientist Sydney Chapman in 1957.
“The lights appeared in streamers, ascending often in a fan shape,” wrote reporter Helen Altonn (then Helen Abood) in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin in 1957. “Sometimes they assumed a waving appearance and ranged in color from pale red or yellow to greens and blues.”
The light is caused by collisions between electrically charged particles streaming out of the sun that enter Earth’s atmosphere and collide with oxygen and nitrogen, causing them to glow.
Bucket list
My friends David and Sharon Gillespie went to Alaska in February to hopefully see the northern lights. “It was on Sharon’s bucket list,” David Gillespie said.
“We were part of a tour group from Air and Sea Travel. About 20 of us were in the tour. We drove to the Arctic Circle, saw the pipeline up close, went ice fishing, hiked on a glacier and took a 2-1/2-mile dog sled ride. It was great!”
He said it was overcast much of the time. After a few days the clouds parted. “We were staying at the Chena Hot Springs Resort, northeast of Fairbanks. Just as we were heading into our room, I looked up and there it was.
“Sharon took a great photo of the aurora over the hotel porch with her iPhone.
“On our last night in Alaska, we were about 15 miles north of Fairbanks on our way back to the hotel after traveling to the Arctic Circle, when we saw it again. We really lucked out.
“It got down to 36 degrees below zero. We had the right clothes, but having to take the glove off my right hand to take pictures was a real challenge.” His solution was to put a hand-warmer in his jacket pocket.
“The shimmering green lights seemed like they came from an alien world,” David said.
Sharon was more effusive. She said the aurora was “breathtaking, unbelievable and a chance of a lifetime!”
Best viewing
Chena Hot Springs says its location, 60 miles northeast of Fairbanks, is one of the best places in the world to see the aurora. The best viewing is in the fall through spring.
It advises visitors to take a nap after dinner and wake up at 10 p.m. “Wait in the Activity Center with other aurora chasers and stay up until 3 a.m.”
Staff members watch and inform the guests when the aurora makes its appearance. Guests can also sit in the natural hot springs and watch the lights dance above their heads.
The camera saw it
Jack Schneider said he and his wife, Michelle, visited Whitehorse, the capital of the Yukon in Canada, in January. The temperature was minus 31 degrees.
“We had a cabin that was total glass on one side. I never saw the lights on that trip — but my camera did! I took pictures of hazy, white clouds. The camera showed the clouds as being bright green. Go figga.
“If I hadn’t seen the aurora during my time of flying the F106 over the Yukon and Alberta parts of Canada in my military service, I would today believe that the aurora was simply a scam to entice tourists into the frozen parts of the world in wintertime.”
‘Riveting’
Other readers told me about their northern lights experiences.
Harry Palmer said he was driving across Wyoming at 2 a.m. many years ago with a van full of belongings.
“I was tired. My cat started moving rapidly, going kind of haywire.
“That prompted me out of my focus on driving. I looked up and I saw the sky full of waves of blue and green.
“I got out of the car and just stood in awe. There was no one around, just swirling winds. Otherwise, it was totally quiet. It was riveting, forever.”
Spirits of the polar night
Mark Rognstad said he has seen both the northern and southern lights. “My first experience with the northern lights began in college in 1974. My friend Rick Buxton, from California, and I, from Hawaii, decided to drive across Canada from Boston College.
“Three others from the dorm came with us. We bought an old Chevy van for $750, stayed in campgrounds and actually did see the aurora during a very cold night camping on the shore of Lake Superior. It was a first for all of us.
“My wife and I saw a spectacular aurora from Andalsnes, Norway, while camping on a really cold night.
“Cloudy skies will prevent seeing the aurora but also reflect heat back to earth, so nights when you can see auroras have to be clear and so are usually extra cold.
“We also saw aurora on a drive from Chena Hot Springs to Fairbanks in Alaska.
“Finally, I’ve even seen aurora australis (southern lights) on a research cruise aboard the UH research vessel Moana Wave in 1990. We were making a sonar map of the Australian-Antarctic Discordance, a very unusual part of the ocean floor between Australia and Antarctica.
“There were a few clear nights when we could see the southern aurora.”
Too cold to look
Islander Carlson Mun said he saw the northern lights from his St. Cloud, Minn., home.
“We could see the northern lights where we lived. In the wintertime we could step out in the front yard late at night and see them dancing overhead.
“One time my parents came to visit. We told them to come out to see the lights. But my mom refused to step out of the front door. She said it was too cold!”
Winning bets
Joyce McCauley wrote: “Having been born and raised in Hawaii, when I joined the U.S. Air Force in the late 1960s, I was stationed first in Maine and next in the Philippines.
“As you can imagine, winter in Maine was snowy; the Philippines, not so much. But the one fact that these folks at either location couldn’t believe was that we had snow in Hawaii.”
Mauna Kea, Mauna Loa and Haleakala get dusted with snow several days a year.
“One could surf in the ocean in the morning and play in snow in the afternoon of the same day!
“I won quite a few bets over this fact!”
Bob Sigall is the author of the five “The Companies We Keep” books. Contact him at Sigall@Yahoo.com or sign up for his free email newsletter at RearviewMirrorInsider.com.
