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Auroral

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The sun threw us a lot of curve balls in the late 80's and early 90's but none exceeded the March 13, 89' Auroral storm.

It was a Sunday night and it was already 10 below zero by 9 pm in upper Vermont. I didn't observe in that climate usually but exceptions did happen.

We had a solar event warning net by telephone and usually the calls were calm and direct as the volunteer would go through the circle of numbers. I had just stepped out of the shower and was getting ready for bed when the phone rang.

The voice on the other end said "AURORAL STORM! GET YOUR ASS OUTSIDE , NOW !!!" and hung up.

With hair still a bit wet, stepped out into the cold with just basic shirt , pants and a jacket. The entire sky was a pulsating tomato red. As minutes elapsed, there were curtains of green ,violet, blue and yellow moving in patterns. Sometimes only half the sky (northern) was in the show, seconds later, the whole thing was covered again. I came in for a camera, film and tripod. Was taking pictures for 6 hours, hair frozen to my head, emptied the fridge of film rolls. By 5 am. just a green band was in the north and I stopped to try and warm up in a hot bath and had to fill it three times, cause I chilled the tub like a ice cube. Took an hour to thaw and seeing it was 6:30, skipped sleep and went right to breakfast and to work (you can do that when young!).

The consequences for the Canadian power grid from that much cosmic particles were unique

[link]

So I was very clean the next day, with a shower followed by an 8 hour soak in energetic protons, and 3 baths to follow!

I do remember the overhead power lines were making a hissing and crackling sound and a green glow from the pole transformers, the 1700/240 volt step-down cans. I took a oscilloscope in the lab the next day and tried it on the power outlets and the ground was full of 40 volt noise even hours later.

That bright spot lost in the glare above my roof? the full moon!
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