It was one for the books. Seeing the aurora borealis in action helped fill a nostalgic hole left by a trip to Iceland six years ago. And I would have almost missed it since skies all over the Pacific Northwest was cloud. And if not for my gut instinct prompting me to just sacrifice sleep to go witness this, I most certainly would have.

As luck would have it, I also managed to see STEVE for the very first time. STEVE, which stands for Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement, is different from a bog-standard aurora in that it is a thin ribbon of purplish-white light that forms further south of the northern lights. When I first saw this band of light dancing above me in the sky, I first mistook it for the aurora before realizing that the actual lights were showing up in the northern horizon. Here is one of the many captures of STEVE near a dark alley east of the Cascades.

Ellensburg
WA USA