March Is the Best Month for Viewing the Aurora Borealis
By Rachel Heimke
Photo by Manuel A. Melendez
If you’ve been wondering how and when to see the aurora, you’re in luck!
March is supposed to be the best time of the year for aurora viewing in Fairbanks. Solar activity is ramping up, and the skies are typically clearer here in March.
Many researchers at UAF study the aurora. Vincent Ledvina is a grad student at the Geophysical Institute who’s been living in Alaska for two years. He’s been interested in the aurora his whole life.
Ledvina remembers the first time he saw the nighttime phenomenon.
“I was only four, but I remember seeing the aurora over my parents’ house in the suburbs of the Twin Cities in Minnesota,” he said.
He decided to pursue space physics and the aurora. He moved up to Alaska and became an aurora chaser.
“My roommate has a funny quote,” he said. “‘Aurora chasing is storm chasing but the space kind.’”
Ledvina watches the webcams the Geophysical Institute streams over their website. When it looks like a good aurora, he hops in his car and drives to one of his favorite spots to view the aurora.
He looks for clear skies, no obstructions like trees or buildings, and a distinct lack of tourists. “Sometimes you just have to wait for a clear night, and just wait,” he said. “Something will happen.”
The aurora occurs every night in Fairbanks, even if we can’t see it. It might be dim or hidden behind clouds, but it always happens somewhere. When Ledvina finds a good display, he photographs and videos it, looking for auroral beads, the focus of his thesis work.
“It’s like a string of pearls,” he said. “They form right before the aurora goes nuts and dances around.”
He told me we’ve all seen auroral beads, even if we didn’t know what they were. They form on the southern auroral arc and look like vertical rays or kinks in the aurora if you’re right underneath it. Ledvina studies them because they seem to be a trigger mechanism for a substorm – an explosion of auroral activity.
“It’s a piece in the puzzle of what is the aurora and what causes [it],” he said.
Ledvina has a list of favorite aurora viewing spots in and around Fairbanks. If you’re looking for a dark, clear spot to view the aurora, plenty of places are nearby.
“I always recommend getting out of the parking lot and hiking into the woods,” Ledvina said.
Smith Lake is a great place to go on campus. You can access it via trails to the west of the Geophysical Institute. If the lake is frozen, you can walk out on the ice and see the aurora with a wide open view of the sky.
Off-campus, Ballaine Lake and Creamer’s Field can offer a clear view. Murphy Dome and Cleary Summit are two of Ledvina’s favorite spots since they are at a higher elevation.
Away from Fairbanks, Chena Lakes, Delta, and Coldfoot can be great places to view the aurora.