Meteorological Observation

[Kyle]

A buddy & I were camped near Perfection Lake last Sat night, at ~7200', and witnessed a powerful thunderstorm off to the north. It was very distant and high in the atmosphere, and it was lighting up the entire N sky with huge white & reddish flashes (at first glance I thought it might be N Lights). We watched this for about 15 minutes, and 3 times we saw what I think were Blue Jets, a form of Lightning Sprites. I've never seen anything like it before... a thin, pale white, straight vertical line that would shoot up into space at high speed from the middle of the storm. It was amazing! We stayed awake a long time hoping to see some more, but it dissipated. I read that these things are fairly rare & poorly understood, and this might have been a once-in-a-lifetime sighting. This article has a sequence of pix that looks similar, only the ones we saw appeared even longer & brighter:

http://www.sciam.com/0897issue/0897mendebox5.html

Just wondering if anyone else has ever seen these?

[Dru]

Wren't those things only "discovered" about 5 years ago??

[Kyle]

One of the other cool sightings I've had recently was on Mt Baker. We were sitting on the edge of the Coleman Gl in the dark (after descending) & watched a 30-minute display of Aurora Borealis, with horizontal bluish-green and yellow bands that jittered & danced back & forth across the entire N horizon. Very cool... only time I've seen the N lights in the Cascades.

-I'll add that this happened last summer, not this season.

[This message has been edited by Kyle (edited 06-14-2001).]

[erik]

kyle, that was the lights of vancouver. i swore that it was the auroa borealis, but it is not.

 

[Kyle]

I'll take from the wink that you're not serious... I know they party hard in Van, but not enough to account for that light show!

[Dru]

Its solar maximum right now. best time in 11 years to see the aurora.

hopefully it will happen again this weekend, i'm still lookin'. when i was up in the arctic circle the days were so long I never got to see night let along the northern lights!

best thing I ever saw meteorolgy wise was the famous "Brocken Spectre" up on Needle Peak during a snowy fall day with the shadow projecting onto an ice fog below the peak. very nice.

 

[nolanr]

You see, Dru and everybody else, what happens when climbers smoke too much weed: you start hallucinating. Just kidding. I'm just envious I haven't seen any light shows like that.

[erik]

KYLE NOW I AM SERIOUS, ABOUT VAN. IT IS THE LIGHTS REFELCTING OFF OF ALL THAT herbal SMOKE THEY GOT GOING ON UP THERE!

[This message has been edited by erik (edited 06-14-2001).]

[nerdom]

I, too, saw the Aurora on Baker last year (mid-August). I crawled out of the tent at about 3 a.m. to take a piss, and while stargazing (and shivering!), looked directly above and witnessed this wild, pulsating show of lights. No colors, just whitish, and pulsing like one of those old psychadelic light gigs they had on those cheesy in-home bar units popular back in the 70s! I woke my tentmates and we took it in for about half an hour before it began to fade in intensity. Never forget it.