On the night of October 10, 2024, a G4 geomagnetic storm resulted in brilliant auroral displays at very low latitudes. Aurora was witnessed throughout the southern USA and into Mexico. Having watched the aurora at New Mexico's Very Large Array in May 2024 during a previous (G3) geomagnetic storm, this time I wanted to capture the aurora and its reflection over water. Of course, in the desert Southwest, finding the right body of water within reasonable driving distance can be no small task!

Thankfully, Cochiti Lake is only about 45 minutes away from where I live in Albuquerque, so a friend and I loaded up our camera gear and headed out. Early October is wonderfully mild in New Mexico, and this evening was no less than perfect. Arriving at our lakeside destination, the aurora was bright and brilliantly red and green, even to the naked eye. A bonus: the red arc visible across the top of the sky, above the auroral "pillars", is known as a Stable Auroral Red (SAR) Arc - a phenomenon only known to occur during significant geomagnetic storms, the result of heat transfer into the upper atmosphere. We watched the aurora dance across the horizon for several hours, as the SAR Arc and moon looked on from overhead.