Aurora over Canada in the NOAA-21 Day Night Band
Day Night band visible imagery (0.7 µm) from NOAA-21 shows the characteristic signal of Aurora Borealis over southern Canada early in the morning (0722 UTC, below and 0903 UTC, above) on 12 September 2024 (Imagery is taken from the CIMSS VIIRS Imagery Viewer). Lunar illumination on 12 September was not present because the waxing gibbous moon was below the horizon. The light emitted from the Aurora, and from cities, and from various wildfire (for example, the Short Draw fire along the Wyoming/Montana border) is easily detected by the VIIRS imager in the view above. VIIRS has a bit more difficulty viewing the smoke plumes over the west, and the clouds with Francine over the mid-South, because of the relative lack of reflected light. The clouds from Francine are absorbing/scattering emitted light from cities in Louisiana and Mississippi making the city lights there less obvious.