The Most Exciting Week Ever!

2014-09-15 18:26:13.000 – Arielle Ahrens,  Summit Intern

Rime ice on a rock!

I’m pretty sure this has been the most exciting week I have experienced since the start of my internship – and that’s saying a lot. This week brought many awesome experiences for me.

There were awesome sunsets over some incredible undercast – which I am still getting used to! Friday night brought the aurora, which was incredible! Definitely beats out the last one I saw in terms of awesome. It was short-lived, but intense. I could actually see colors this time! My eyes were able to detect the greens and reds, though the blues appeared dark grey. Ryan Knapp’s photo and Mike Dorfman’s timelapse of the event went viral and even got media attention, which was great for them and the Observatory!

Freezing temperatures brought us freezing rain/drizzle and ice pellets late Saturday afternoon with freezing fog overnight into Sunday which resulted in rime ice. This was my first experience with rime ice and it totally felt like Christmas morning when I ran outside and saw it all over everything. As you can see in the picture, it didn’t matter how large or small the object was, there was no escaping the rime ice.

Arielle Ahrens,  Summit Intern