Elusive Aurora (Borealis)

About 10pm, Tuesday night, in spite of frigid temperatures, news of a stronger-than-average solar burst enticed me out of doors in search of the elusive Aurora. I say "elusive" because in the past few years I've noticed a trend toward fewer Aurora sightings and, even when spotted, the color (usually just green) has been less vibrant, even milky.

I also say "elusive" because in the ten years I've lived in this village, I've never been able to capture the Northern Lights photographically. And even these meager shots in the dark (literally) were taken without a tripod, so they're nothing to brag about from a technical standpoint.

Still, I feel like one of those Sasquatch hunters who has finally snagged a clear, indisputable photo of his quarry! I caught the Aurora in my own back yard! How terrific is that?

Was it worth kneeling in the snow?

...in the dark?

...@ 47 below?

...while brushing frost off my eyelashes and nose?

Completely!

And a fun little factoid about wearing snow pants and a heavy parka is that no one can see the pajamas underneath! :)



So if you're interested in the Aurora Borealis, here are some extremely informative sites that delve deeper into both the scientific and photographic aspects of the subject. I found graphs that illustrate and explain the dearth of aurora sightings I've noticed over the last few years. How validating! :)

Aurora Hunter

Aurora Forecast-Geophysical Institute

The Aurora Page

Hunting The Great Alaskan Aurora

And if you want to see spectacular photographs and an awesome video of Tuesday night's aurora activity in Canada and the UK...check this out! (scroll all the way to the bottom for the video)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2091117/The-midnight-phoenix-rises-Biggest-solar-storms-seven-years-create-spectacular-northern-lights.html

Equinox Paradox

A funny thing (always) happens on the way to the Equinox.

Just when the sun begins to creep a few degrees toward Spring (and you think things are going to warm up), that's when the real cold sets in.

Wind	from the SSE (160 degrees) at 7 MPH (6 KT)
Visibility	10 mile(s)
Sky conditions	clear
Temperature	-47 F (-44 C)
Windchill	-70 F (-57 C)

More of the same is forecast for the week.

Winter never relents without a fight and it'll be stirring things up for months to come.

Fortunately, for me, staying warm won't be a problem. Nothing is toastier than a traditional fur-lined parka and I've got one (with a brand new cover)!





Quyanaq to Kate for the beautiful new atikæuk! You did an excellent job!




(By the way, the photo at the top of the page was taken with my nifty new camera that takes cool panoramic photos. Click on the pic to see a larger image).

Moonlight? Spotlight? Or what?

A little clarification.

That's a snow fence in the foreground, the shadowed riverbank just beyond, and the frozen river is that white space between the two. Beyond that, it's all tundra, flat tundra, without trees or any other sort of obstruction, which makes that sliver of laser-bright luminescence all the more noticeable...and strange.

In all the years that I've lived in the Arctic, I've never seen anything like this. There have been plenty of clear nights in which the moon illuminated the entire snow-covered expanse creating an ocean-like reflection as far as the eye could see.

This night was different.

It's as if a spotlight was trained on one, specific, amazingly limited area.

Very pretty. But kind of eerie.



Sort of Twilight Zone-ish...without the pesky aliens.

At least, as far as I know.

Snowbow or Icebow?

Not a rainbow, not a sun-dog, this bow was the handiwork of Mr. Sun...painting ribbons with ice crystals across our northern October sky.



Of course, Old Man Winter had a hand in it too.



The colors were much more vivid than these photos reveal.



Snowbow or icebow?
Either way, it was pretty cool!

The Dark Side of Sunlight

There is nothing more effervescent than springtime sunshine across the tundra!

With daylight hours stretching well beyond ten o'clock in recent days, children of all ages find making hay much more appealing than hitting it.






In other words, there's no time like springtime for staying out late and soaking up rays...even if it drives your parents and teachers crazy!



Yet, however strange it might sound, all that sunshine does have a dark side.

While it splashes itself across the seamless white tundra and packs a visual wallop that demands protective eyewear, sunlight (this time of year) doesn't actually carry that much warmth.

It slyly disguises still-frigid temperatures with its flashy smile and those who are fooled by its brightness often pay a hefty price.



It's still cold.

And no one knows that better than this fifteen-year-old girl who made the mistake of riding a skidoo wearing only warm-up pants instead of insulated snow pants.

Her frostbite wound was painful at first, but is healing well.

Lesson learned...I hope.

Sweet Sunshine Sliding

What is wrong with me?

Though I'm sure everyone feels the time crunch in one way or another, there are plenty of teachers out there who still manage to blog well & blog often in spite of having demanding jobs and full lives beyond cyberspace. FC over at Pure Florida makes daily (yes, I said daily) blogging look easy.

How does he do that?

I'm pretty sure it involves waking up much earlier than I am willing to or may even be capable of, so the hope of me becoming a daily blogger is probably nil...at least not until retirement (and even then the odds aren't good).

At any rate, here's my semi-biweekly post skidding in just under the wire before Favorite Foto Friday begins calling for attention.

The last couple of weeks have been brimming with blue skies and sunshine. Add to that mountain ranges of pushed snow and you've got the perfect spring time recreation.

There's nothing better than a slippery snow slide on a sub-zero afternoon! At least...if you're not sure about that...just ask one of these little cuties.












What a blast!

Worth the Wait

Around lunchtime, on Monday, the long-anticipated buzz began...

"The sun is here!"

"Can you see the sun?"

"You should see the sun!"

Emails sizzled, hot and fast, across the network.

On-the-ball observers spread the word door-to-door.

Faculty, staff, and students scurried toward south-facing windows, fingers and noses pressed against the glass.

All this...just to catch a fleeting glimpse, to witness that first blazing moment when the earth tilts its head and the sun shimmers a hundred shades of pink and red and yellow and orange upon a canvas of frozen white.



Maybe the angle of rays through miles of atmosphere magnifies the glory.

Or maybe weeks upon weeks of darkness simply exaggerates the effect.

Regardless of the reason, our moment in the sun is dramatic and invigorating.



And the majesty of that moment is...worth the wait.

Magic Number

It seems ironic that our coldest time of year is when the sun is on the rise. At the risk of sounding like an old fisherman telling a tale, I still have to say that this isn't as cold as it's been in years past.

These are tonight's stats with a 9 mph wind:

Temperature	-43 F (-42 C)
Windchill	-68 F (-56 C)

I remember school being dismissed a few years ago because, not only was the ambient temperature around -60, the windchill was -84. And I'm sure lifelong residents would have no trouble topping that.

But, forty below seems to be the magic number that brings all things mechanical to a screeching halt. The school bus is relegated to the bus barn because metal parts tend to snap. Bush planes aren't supposed to be in the air at -40 or colder and I can't say I'd want to be on one that was.

Moisture from furnaces crystallizes and hangs in the air like a veil.

Without the buzz of four-wheelers and snow machines, the village might settle into an eerie sort of silence.

Except...

In temperatures like these, fabrics containing polyester stiffen and make crinkling sounds when the wearer moves. A group of children in store-bought coats sound like a bunch of potato chip bags being crumpled together.

Nothing silent about that.

Even the snow is noisy...like treading on Styrofoam, it squeaks and creaks with every step.

I just let Rudy out for the last time tonight. When he came back inside five minutes later, his teeth were actually chattering! I had to laugh. It just isn't often that one hears the sound of chattering teeth emanating from a dog.



It seems that Peace and Quiet, those long-standing friends, spend most of the year together. But when the mercury drops to forty below, Quiet looks for some warmer weather.

Darkness Subsiding

Winter darkness is on its way out.

I took this photo on Christmas day while standing in the doorway of my apartment. Rudy had just ventured out for his afternoon scratch-n-sniff session and, in spite of the biting cold (that haze is the humidity that escaped from the house when I opened the door), I stood there for a moment, admiring the sapphire tones and azure hues of our southern sky in December.

Reminds me of a mood ring that I had in junior high.

Compostionally, this is no great shot, I know. It would have been better if I'd walked down toward the lake, away from the telephone poles and power lines, but the idea of bundling up and getting out there was less than appealing. I settled for a cluttered shot and hurried my dog along, so I could shut the door and get warm again.

Then I realized that the winter solstice had come and gone without my even mentioning it. Not that it's a big deal, exactly, but it does mark the point when we begin to gradually gain light again.

And that's a good thing.

Toward the end of January, the sun will peak above the horizon for the first time in about sixty days and by spring it will be our constant companion again. But, for now, this is the light we see...in the afternoon...when it's not cloudy...or blowing snow...like today.

Wind from the E at 30 MPH (26 KT) gusting to 33 MPH (29 KT) Visibility 5 mile(s)
Weather Blowing snow
Precipitation last hour A trace
Temperature -4.9 F (-20.5 C)
Windchill -32 F (-36 C)
Dew Point -8.9 F (-22.7 C)
Relative Humidity 82%



Looks peaceful, doesn't it?

What a Sweet Day!

This has been an exceptionally nice day.

It began quite uncharacteristically. I woke up early and still felt great! I can't explain it. There was no good reason for it. It just happened. In spite of staying up late and not feeling well for the past week, there it was. I was awake at 6:25 a.m., without the aid of an alarm clock and didn't feel like I'd been hit by a truck or was being sucked down a gigantic drain.

Amazing!

Is this how morning people feel every day?

My dog wasn't prepared for the early start (he's not a morning person either) and continued to snooze on his bed while I made my favorite scrambled omelet, read, checked my email, and had time to do a leisurely catch-up on almost every blog that I enjoy, including a few new ones that I had never seen before.

That was huge!

It was still dark outside. Only a house or two showed signs of life. No snow machines or four-wheelers buzzing here or there. No dogs barking or kids yelling. Nothing. Just quiet and stillness and the soft glow of streetlights on freshly fallen snow.

Not long after lunch, there came an intermittent pounding on the doors of the four-plex where I live.

Trick-or-Treaters? Already? In the middle of the day?

Yep.





One after another, they kept on coming, some unknown force drawing them away from the warmth of their homes toward hands full of chocolate and Sweet Tarts and bubble gum and toys.





Eventually, I realized that this is the first Halloween that I've spent in this village that didn't fall on a school day. Even when Halloween fell on Saturday, we had Saturday school, so most of our kids are accustomed to trick-or-treating almost immediately after school. Without the confinement of school, they were free to get an early start.

And they did!

One after another, they showed up on my door step with faces sweeter than the candy in their bags.




And tonight is Puuqtaluk!

But that's another story.

End of Summer

Where in the world did the summer go?

(I know, I know...Australia!)

It seems to have slipped behind the clouds while attention was trained on a recent thunderstorm. As I write this, our ambient temperature is 34 (F) with a windchill of 24 degrees. After the last two or three days' rain and wind, the cotton grass around the village now more closely resembles the wet, matted fur of a freshly-bathed cat than the fluffy balls of cotton in the photograph above.

The sun dips progressively lower in the sky as if weary from months of radiating around the clock. Two weeks ago we had a string of pleasant, though windy, blue-sky days and anyone with a four-wheeler got outside and made the most of it.



Hunters went hunting. Fishers went fishing. Pickers went picking. And big brothers took little sisters for rides around the village, enjoying the fresh scent of wet summer grass and the warm caress of sun on their cheeks that will be a memory all too soon.



Quiet moments of sun-splashed Summer grow shorter and fainter every day...





while Autumn slips in a silent finger and does some doodling in the sand.

Squirrelly

It's not just the landscape that gets all squirrelly this time of year.

I'm sitting here, in my classroom, trying to update my blog, and I just had to close the mini-blinds because the sun is so bright that I'm beginning to see spots...at 12:45 AM.

The last few days have been cool (in the 40's and 50's), with light winds around 20 mph and relatively bug-free air space. Yes! Mosquitoes have been sparse for the last couple of days!

I'm hoping it's a trend and not just a blip.

I guess we'll see.

According to this cool chart, we have about 35 days before the sun finally dips below the horizon again. These super-long days make sleeping impossible for some, optional for others.

Don't think for a minute that parka squirrels are the only ones enjoying the midnight sun.



What would you do with 24 hours of daylight?

The Arctic Springs Back!

As I suspected it might, the first day of Spring turned out to be a sunny, blue-sky day and the village was literally bustling with activity.  Snow machines and four wheelers zipped and darted all around, their riders obviously unbothered by a windchill in the negative forties.

And snow removal, which happens year-round to some extent, gets a huge boost this time of year.  Hauling tons and tons of snow from point A to point B is a fairly big job that requires fairly big machinery.

Two slightly out-of-focus ravens supervised today's progress from a distance...

...while two little guys busied themselves with big machinery of their own.

Yep, it's finally Spring!

Cool Rays

According to the Weather Underground sticker on the sidebar, we enjoyed three hours and fifteen minutes of sunlight today. That doesn't include ambient light, of course. On the Weather Underground website, they also report that the sun's time above the horizon is currently increasing at a rate of 14 minutes and 53 seconds per day. That increase does vary some from day to day....strange, but true.

Also, I would say those numbers are close, but not exact, for Atqasuk. Weather Underground reports our weather conditions and moon/sunlight using Barrow airport information which isn't always accurate down here (55 miles southwest of Barrow).

I like to get my weather info from NOAA (see weather link in sidebar) because those readings are taken hourly with instruments that are actually at our airport. Their numbers always jibe with my home thermometer and I like that! But I haven't found any sunlight information from that source, so I've kept the Weather Underground sticker on the sidebar. And it's pretty close.

The point of all this is...
We're gaining sunlight quickly! It won't be long before sunglasses are standard gear and aluminum foil graces windows all over town.

As the next photo illustrates, a little sunlight brings out the frisky in everyone...even, maybe especially, at twenty below.