You can all just go ahead and start calling me a storm chaser now, because I am HOOKED. I dragged Dave out last night (he wasn't feeling well) when I got a text from the Aurora Alerts twitter account saying that the Aurora Borealis would be at storm level. We headed up North, thinking that would be the best place to spot them.
We found what we were looking for and were so excited to finally see the Northern Lights, after living in Alaska for nine months. The stars were SO bright up North, thanks to there being no street lights and no one else out that way. We were in awe at how big and close the Big/Little Dippers looked!
As the night went on, the Northern Lights became more intense and we could tell they were brighter over by the glacier (where we live, go figure). So we drove back down south and parked it at one of the trails to watch.
I don't have a tripod at the moment, so I couldn't keep my shutter open for as long as I would've liked, but I thought some of these turned out pretty good for balancing on the window sill of our Jeep...
It was magical watching the Northern Lights dance and change colors. It really is like you see in pictures and videos. I told Dave I can almost leave Alaska a happy woman now, whenever we decide to move back to the lower 48, this was one of the top things on my Alaska list.
If you're planning a trip to Alaska, or anywhere that might get some Northern Lights action, I highly recommend following Aurora Alerts on twitter. I have it set up to receive their tweets as texts, which I think is more helpful, that way when the Aurora is at storm level I know to hop in the car and go!