Strong Auroras At Historically Low Latitudes; Barcelona Under Snow, Red Alert Issued In Mallorca; California’s Record Snow Year; Greenland SMB Spikes Again; + Antarctica Cools

Strong Auroras At Historically Low Latitudes

Two Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) hit Earth’s magnetic field on February 26 and 27, sparking a series of strong G3-class geomagnetic storms with stunning auroras visible in both hemispheres — from France to New Zealand.

A magnetic filament connected to sunspot AR3229 erupted on February 24, producing a chain reaction of events that led to a geomagnetic storm on Earth. Last Friday, the filament rose up and sliced through the sun’s atmosphere:


The violent outburst destabilized sunspot AR3229, sparking a long-duration M3-class solar flare at 20:30 UTC. Radiation from the flaring soon ionized the top of Earth’s atmosphere, blacking out shortwave radio transmissions around the Pacific Ocean.

Next, a CME emerged from the blast site.

Coronagraph images from SOHO show a lopsided halo with an Earth-directed component:


The CME had a departure speed of approx. 1200 km/s (2.7 million mph), and it arrived at Earth on February 26.

Dynamic patterns of glowing green, pink and purple were soon spotted by stargazers as far south as Kent and Cornwall in the UK, and also Mont Saint-Michel in France. While on the other side of the world, Ian Griffin photographed the display from New Zealand:



“What an epic night!” said Griffin.

“There was an absolutely amazing display of Southern Lights over Hoopers Inlet on the Otago Peninsula. A clear sky and no wind made for simply beautiful reflections. I’ve just got home after being up all night with the biggest grin ever on my face!”

Formed by electrically charged particles colliding with gas molecules in Earth’s upper atmosphere, auroras are typically confined to high-latitude regions around the Arctic and Antarctic. For them to be sweep southern England, for example, is very rare.

Moreover, this wasn’t a particularly strong flare — a meager M-3. It was, however, a long-duration event. Also, the CME is thought to have been almost immediately followed by a second which hit while Earth’s shields were already ‘down’.

And to that point, our planet’s magnetic field strength is weakening, down some ≈20% from the 1800s, with that weakening accelerating. This waning is due to two key factors: 1) low solar activity, and 2) our planet’s migrating magnetic poles.

As Earth loses its dipole magnetic shape –due to the shifting of its magnetic poles– the overall field strength weakens and its protective shield against potentially harmful space energy is reduced. This means every enhancement of the solar wind, every crossing of the Sun’s current sheet, and every CME has a larger and larger impact than it ordinarily would, both directly on the upper atmosphere, and also indirectly through the ionosphere’s equator-traveling waves that come from the aurora.

In the year 2000, we knew the field had lost 10% of its strength since the 1800s; another 5% was lost by 2010; further accelerations occurred in 2015 and 2017, but we laymen were not privy to any additional loss data–with guesses on why that might be quickly sending you down a rabbit hole.

Migrating magnetic poles indicate that another ‘flip’ aka ‘reversal’ or ‘excursion’ may be on the cards, and ‘soon’.

Such an event would bring apocalyptic shifts in the geography and climate, it would seem like the ‘end of times’–proxy records reveal regular upheavals in ancient past, the most notable being the ‘Laschamp excursion’ of approx. 42,000 years ago–although research suggests that these reversals/excursions can occur on a much shorter periodicity, of 6,000 years.

This is a reality that even mainstream science is gradually waking up to:


This next video paletably recaps Chan Thomas’ infamous Adam and Eve Story:


Large sunspot AR3234 remains on the Earth-facing solar disk, and the region still has an unstable delta-class magnetic field making it capable of strong explosions.

If, or rather when, that long-lasting solar X9+ flare hits Earth directly it will spell game over for the majority of Earth’s power grid: This means no more internet, no more just-in-time deliveries, no more medicine, no more food — no more having it all handed to us on a plate. We will be on our own. The prepared and resourceful will survive; the weak, cotton-balled masses will not.

It’s when, not if.

Green and red lights created by the aurora borealis
Northern lights which are rarely seen in Kent, southern England.


Barcelona Under Snow, Red Alert Issued In Mallorca

Descending Arctic air into Central and Western Europe has delivered snow to the likes of Barcelona:


Aemet has also issued an incredibly rare red alert for Mallorca, Spain’s largest Balearic Island in the Mediterranean, with heavy snow–as much as 50 cm (1.64 ft), and freezing lows–below -2C (28.4F) hitting the Tramuntana Mountains — with the snow line falling to a historic 100 m (328 ft).


The snow has led to many road closures across Spain.


And across central and western Europe, temperatures are holding well-below the norm which has been the case throughout February. I can attest here in central Portugal, where I’ve taken to heating my polytunnel with tea light heaters in order to protect my tender starts.


California’s Record Snow Year

Thousands of residents in the Lake Arrowhead area were snowed in over the weekend due to the “the biggest storm in decades” battering Southern California’s mountain communities.

Many residents were trapped by the deep layer of snow and ice, with Bernardino County declaring a local emergency on Monday. Plows were slowly working to clear the main roads Sunday, with residential areas hoping to be open Monday.

“This is the most magnificent storm in the 31 years that I’ve been here,” said local Ginny Dunn.

“I have never seen North Bay this snowy and untraveled.”

The last widespread snowfall event at sea level in the Bay Area was in 1976 (solar minimum of weak cycle 20).


The snow peaked at Mount High, which received a whopping 7.75 ft (2.36 m) during the storm.

Mammoth Lakes also picked up additional feet:


Looking ahead, California is will be hit again with “two more rounds of heavy snow” and dangerous blizzard conditions combined with wind gusts up to 60 mph hitting the Sierra Nevada until at least Wednesday, according to the NWS — snow that will drive statewide snowpack even further above the multidecadal norm.

The UC Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Laboratory has recorded 460 inches of snowfall this season as of Monday — 100 inches more than the seasonal average.


Currently, CA snowpack is riding high, with the Sierra currently at 181% of the average for the time of year and an impressive 156% of the April 1 average–when snowpack typically peaks.

But hold on now, let’s not go thinking California suffering its snowiest year on record could ever disprove the global warming hypothesis. No no no, the MSM have their bought-and-paid-for, narrative-maintaining explain-away to allay such silliness:

“Climate change is causing more precipitation extremes, both heavy rain and snow, as well as sharpening swings between wet and dry periods across the U.S. West, including California — which is still in the grip of its worst drought in 1,200 years.

The legacy media continue:

“Climate scientist Daniel Swain said that given the outlook of “a continuation of very active and cold, snowy conditions for at least the next couple of weeks, it’s very possible” parts of the state could end up with “one of the top two snow years” on record.

Fitting square pegs into round holes — a climate scientist’s main task nowadays as they watch real world observations increasinly defy AGW Party proclamations.


Greenland SMB Spikes Again

Following Fridays record-breaking surface mass balance (SMB) gains, the Greenland ice sheet has been at it again.

Monday, February 27 saw the sheet gain another 9 gigatons:

[DMI]


These recent ‘spikes’ have lifted the season’s accumulated SMB back off the 1981-2010 mean–after a historically strong start to the season September-through-November:

[DMI]


Antarctica Cools

Antarctica is cooling — the data is clear and undeniable.

Any ice loss at the ‘bottom of the world’ is due to circulation patterns (i.e. winds) within the Antarctic vortex–which is particularly strong (and cold) this year. These winds are driving sea ice offshore and into the oceans — the ice is not melting due to human prosperity (i.e. CO2 emissions) as the establishment would have us believe.

–It can’t be: Antarctica has been exceptionally cold in recent years, posting its coldest-ever coreless winter (April-Sept) last year, and routinely holding below monthly averages and busting a string of low temperature records ever since.

As recently as Monday, February 27, Dome Fuji, a Japanese Base station in Antarctica, dropped to -58.1C (-72.6F). This is now the lowest global temperature in February 2023, usurping the historically frigid -57.9C (-72.2F) logged at Oymyakon, Siberia earlier in the month.

The planet is cooling and will continue to cool in line with low solar activity, which is predicted to ‘fall off a cliff’ by Solar Cycle 26 (due to commence 2030). There is time to prepare; that is, if our parasitical overlords don’t drive civilization into the ground first.