Wild-Weather.com

Well it’s been a very quiet hurricane season so far. This is because of El Nino. As a result the trade winds are stronger than normal and there is a lot of wind shear in the Atlantic Basin. Wind shear is the enemy of Hurricanes and kills them off quickly. As a result there have been very few hurricanes so far this year and at the moment this pattern looks set to stay.

It’s time to start thinking about the Northern Lights again. As winter draws nearer and the nights get longer and darker, viewing opportunities get better. Once again I am running an expedition to Northern Norway to see, photograph and video the northern lights. The target perid for the expedition is sometime during the first half of February, a time period that has always worked well. last year we saw the Aurora on 4 consecutive nights. The 2009 expedition will be a little longer than last years as we will stay in Tromso for an extra night before making the incredibly scenic drive up to Alta via the ferries that cross the Fjords. This is not your regular Northern Lights trip to Tromso. As well as spending time in the small arctic city we will also travel to Karasjok and spend 2 nights in some extremely remote Arctic cabins up in the mountains. This is a magical place, where the sky is so dark that the stars look like salt spilt across the sky. The epedition dates are not set in stone and won’t get fixed until 27 days before we leave. That way we can keep an eye on the sun and take advantage of any coronal holes that take 28 days to rotate around the sun, maximizing the chances of seeing a spectacular aurora. The cost to join this expedition is £980 pp excluding flights. Flights can be picked up cheaply via Norwegian.no