The blog
Another March Surprise
Another night of balmy March weather, and another night that somehow ended up pleasantly surprising us all.
Very small clear breaks revealed some gentle arcs of aurora, including a few short moments of her brightening enough to make us say wow. Better than we had anticipated, for sure.
No Better Feeling
Look as you like into the most frequent but still outdated satellite images, untrustworthy cloud prediction maps, and as skeptical as ever changing forecasts will make you through the week, there has to be some blind trust in this. What other choice do we have.
So we think we’ve got it figured out, but travelling under cloud for dozens of kilometres leaving Yellowknife, there’s always that doubt in the back of your mind about this. But then the cloud bank just ends over a few kilometres and you’re in the clear. Literally in the clear. And the aurora is there waiting.
There’s no better feeling.
And in the first photo, can we just take a moment to appreciate the aircraft flying just to the right of the aurora leaving a curved vapour trail behind it? I think that’s pretty awesome.
Windows
Windows are all we ask for on nights of challenging weather. Tonight we had two.
Early in the night, a small clear break sustained itself just long enough for an early dance with the lady above our heads. Then some time later, a clear sky chase took us further west into another opening but very, very quiet auroral conditions persisted.
A World of Difference
The last two nights have felt more like two weeks. Clouds. Kilometres. A lot of kilometres. Such quiet auroral conditions.
Then there was tonight. Hours seemed to pass in only a few minutes, and all of a sudden checking the back of my camera it was 2:00a. How does that even happen. Clear skies, no moonlight, and much changed auroral conditions, apparently.
