Tuesday, October 09, 2012

Seasonable week ahead - spectacular northern lights

An amazing photo of last nights northern lights taken by Beth Allan outside Edmonton. (Spaceweather.com)
Seasonable, a weather geeks word for boring. We are looking at another week of seasonable weather with temperatures in Montreal and across eastern Ontario running very close to normal (4/14C). Highs will be in the teens today, around 16C for Montreal. High pressure is in control of our weather today with low pressure along the east coast keeping clouds and showers well southeast of our region. It is a chilly start to the day with temperatures around 4C at the airport but only 1C here on L'Ile Perrot with scattered frost. A freeze occurred in the rural areas off island with St. Anicet at -1C and Lennoxville at -2C at 7am. This is thew second morning in a row I have had to scrape ice off the windshield. This is roughly the normal arrival for frost in this portion of the province, same as last year. I started winterizing the property just a little yesterday as I remain is disbelief how fast the seasons have swung. The balance of the week will see a couple of cold fronts cross the area with pretty chilly air by Friday in place. There is a risk, and just a slight one, of a few snowflakes by late Thursday night. Otherwise look for sunshine today followed by a chance of showers late Wednesday and again Thursday night. No big storms on the menu for this week.

Spectacular Aurora
A geomagnetic solar storm on October 4th has released millions of particles into the atmosphere and has generated spectacular northern lights across a large portion of the northern hemisphere. There were endless reports of the spectacle last night along with amazing photos across Canada and the northern third of the US. I did not see anything here in Montreal, but mind you we have so much light pollution in this city that seeing anything other than a street lamp is rather difficult. You can read up on this phenomenon as well as other information at Spaceweather.com

1 comment:

James said...

Wonderful pictures but I like to see pink shades of northern lights. You can also see and experience Alaska northern lights tours