I have long desired to get a beautiful image of the aurora in Northern Virginia skies. But up to this point, such images had eluded me. When I got a Kp 7 aurora alert, indicating that conditions for a G3 strong geomagnetic storm had been reached at 10:30 pm on Oct 7, I quickly studied the aurora forecast. Everything looked promising and the skies were clear as a bell. I debated whether to head out at this late hour, but ultimately decided to make the ninety minute drive to the blue ridge mountains.
When we arrived at Hogback Mountain overlook on Skyline Drive in the Shenandoah National Park, a second substorm started to light up the sky. We quickly set up our cameras and started clicking away. Those beautiful images were finally happening!
Here were the aurora conditions according to the Spaceweatherlive.com app from the 1:00 am (5:00 UTC) G3 strong geomagnetic substorm. It was listed at Kp 7.3. It lasted around 30 minutes before the aurora faded away again. The aurora did not make another strong appearance for the rest of the night. We headed home around 2:30 am, happy that we had seen a strong aurora display in very clear skies.
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