Northern Lights -- Where, When and What

In recent years several really nice videos of Northern Lights over Norway have been made. Here are two of them: http://vimeo.com/113094940 and http://vimeo.com/82181786. These were made by Ole C. Salmonsen for visitnorway.com and Hurtigruten and feature Northern Lights in the vicinity of Tromsø, one of the best places on Earth to see Northern Lights. These two videos show the wide range of structures and colors (as seen by cameras), as well as the fluid movements of Northern Lights. We would love to be in Tromsø on such clear winter nights! And we may be. However, all that snow in Ole's videos came from clouds, clouds that often hide Northern Lights. We could see Northern Lights so much better if Hutigruten ships could cruise above the clouds!

There are also various videos of Northern and Southern Lights taken from the International Space Station, way, way above the clouds. Yes, the aurora occurs above and around both North and South Poles. Here is link to one: 

(http://www.santatelevision.com/northern-lights/northern-lights-viewed-from-space-2/#1).

Visit www.santatelevision.com or www.NASA.gov for more videos from Space.

For a short explanation of where, when and what about Northern Lights see (http://geo.phys.uit.no/articl/nord_eng.html) by Truls Lynne Hansen, Tromsø Geophysical Observatory, University of Tromsø.

For more extensive information about Northern Lights, see the many reports listed in NOAA's Arctic Theme Page (http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/lights.html).

For those that can read a bit of Norwegian, or are skilled at reading graphs and images typical of extensive weather websites, here is an excellent website for following the weather and visibility of Northern Lights over all of Norway -- www.storm.no . Note that one of the nice presentations on this extensive webpage (scroll down for more and more) is location of the band of Northern Lights (Nordlys) just to north of Tromsø (broad, fuzzy green band), as well as an estimate of how far south Northern Lights could be seen just above the horizon (thin green line to south). If you click on (vis skydekke) in this presentation, you will see the extent and density of cloud cover that could reduce visibility of Northern Lights or hide them entirely. Should you check location of the broad, fuzzy green band relative to Tromsø and location of the thin green line to south, over a period of a day or days, you can get an idea of how much the location of Northern Lights moves north and south ward. Sometimes they are directly overhead at Tromsø, sometimes so much further north as to only be seen along northern horizon. The third factor that can determine whether or how well Northern Lights can be seen is the intensity of beams of electrons and protons emitted from sunspots on our Sun.