Desert Survivor: Northern Lights in Snake Valley!

This isn't something I was expecting to see in Snake Valley! The Great Basin area is relatively far south, so how in the world are we seeing northern lights?

Well, thanks to a solar maximum this year and several large CME's - coronal mass ejections -aimed towards the earth, we're being bombarded by solar stuff (I'm 100% sure that's the technical term) that makes for awesome skies, even in more southerly locales. We're located along the 39th parallel (the Equator is 0 and North Pole is +90), so that puts us more towards the south than the north (let me remember that come winter, lol). But with all the activity, northern lights appeared in May (which I missed due to traveling), and now they're back in October!

My friend Jenny and I had gone out two nights to try and see them over the weekend, but one night was a bust and the other night they were so dim that I didn't even post any of my photos. But on Monday night, 10/7/2024, she texted me to get my eyes outside. I boogied out, bring the whole family, and we were amazed! We could see some color with just our eyes (those naked eyes we're always hearing about!). And with a longer exposure, the colors really popped!

The kids responsibly went to bed a little after 8 pm, but I wanted to see more, so I jumped in the car and started driving around. Except the color had faded quite a bit. It was still a nice glow.

The pond was so serene with the glow over it.

Welcome to Baker, Nevada. It's extra colorful now!

I headed to the Baker Archeological Site, because I thought it would be extra cool to think about the Fremont people here hundreds of years ago maybe experiencing this same phenomenon. What would they have thought?

The color wasn't super bright, but it was beautiful.

I was getting tired, so I decided to pack it up. But as I was walking back to the car, I noticed the colors strengthening. Hooray! Here's the path to the aurora!