Every 30 mile boat ride out to the Farallon Islands begins with a crossing under the Golden Gate Bridge. Unless of course you're leaving on a morning socked in with fog, which is not uncommon for coastal California. This will be my third summer season spent on Southeast Farallon Island, and early morning views like this never get old. I plan to post photos and brief stories of the work we do on the Farallones throughout the summer months, so follow this space if you're interested.
Another Season Ending /
It finally happened again. Another winter in Fairbanks has come to pass, which means another aurora season is wrapping up. Last week, a pulse of warm air from the south took a toll on the snow pack here in Interior Alaska. Many of the roads are now ice free, and brown patches of bare dirt are gradually becoming exposed. The break up is upon us. The added solar input from increasingly longer days will soon transform this winter landscape into a sea of fresh green buds. With the arrival of green leaves comes the departure of green clouds, when the midnight sun once again overtakes the aurora in the "night" sky. A lull in auroral activity was suddenly broken yesterday evening by a brief geomagnetic storm (see data below), sparking potentially one of the last displays of northern lights we will see up here until darkness returns again in late August.
