Tired Of Seeing Bogus Forecasts For More Auroras In WA?…Me Too!
Ever since the Aurora Borealis incongruously dazzled the night skies of Washington State several months ago, a disturbing trend has emerged within the world of our connected technologies.
In the weeks following the many social media postings of mostly-photo-enhanced Northern Lights featuring ribbons of antifreeze green and dustings of phosphorescent purple, there have been a trail of spurious forecasts promising more of the same activity that seem to be almost as never-ending as the Cosmos that served as the backdrop to that extraordinary night.
Every single day, my news feeds of "preferred content" on my cellphone and laptop are themselves lit up with click-baited story after click-baited story about where and when to see the Auroras again in the Lower 48. But as we all know, nothing even close to the splendor that was witnessed (and again mostly Photoshopped imo) on May 10 has happened since then.
Now, that's not to say that it couldn't, and no doubt won't again...at some point at least. With increased solar and geomagnetic activity expected to continue for many years, our chances of having a repeat performance of that heavenly resplendence from a solar-charged Mother Nature here in the Evergreen State are actually quite good. And because I'm certain most of us would like to witness this inevitable encore without feeling like Chicken Little has driven us completely mad in the interim, I for one would appreciate the proselytizing churnalists of the world to lay off the subject until actual scientists actually report that we are likely to see it again.
The worst effect that all of these artificially-hyped editorials have had on me, is how they've managed to collectively sour my attitude about seeing the Northern Lights at all. I've actually never had the opportunity to behold their luminous panoply before and had always more than welcomed the idea of somehow finding myself above the rim of the Arctic Circle and chancing upon them. But now the whole notion of seeing and appreciating one of Creation's rarer works of neon artistry seems just as banal as wanting to overpay for a few minutes of coerced stimulation on a ride at Disneyland. That's because for me, hype kills - everything!
So I say it's probably time to saddle up and book that trip to Whitehorse or Yellowknife that I've long desired to take and forget the waiting and wading through all of those fugazi articles. After all, these are places where the Aurora Borealis are as at home as rainbows in Hawai'i and London Fog in its namesake city. And isn't that what we all long to truly see anyway? I mean, a red panda or a three-toed sloth inside a plexiglass enclosure at the zoo might be nice enough, but witnessing these incredible creatures in their nature state is far more where it's at. And although the Northern Lights in Waterville, Washington or Blair, Nebraska might also be nice enough, it seems more tantamount to seeing someone's escaped boa constrictor slithering though a metropolitan construction site, and that ain't the novelty that I'm after.