Today's Michigan in Pictures notes that according to the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center, Northern Lights are likely all week!

Ken took these photos of the Aurora Borealis from Empire Bluffs on July 15, 2012 and stitched them together. Check out an amazing time-lapse from Ken of that night's action below!

Today's Michigan in Pictures reports that NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center (a great resource for alerts on the aurora borealis) says that the Earth remains under the influence of a September 27 coronal mass ejection (CME)  that has reached the G3 (Strong) level. Auroral activity is possible through tonight, and they were seen last night at least as far south as Cadillac!

Much more about this amazing phenomenon in the northern lights category on Michigan in Pictures and see more aurora borealis photos from Leelanau as well!

Check this out background big and in Kenneth's Sleeping Bear Dunes slideshow.

Aurora Borealis ... with star trails by Ken Scott

The heat is on!! Summer is underway, with the temperature a heartbeat away from 90 degrees at Leelanau Coffee Roasting and much more sun and 80s on the way. The hot times don't end when the sun goes down as Ken Scott's photo from last night shows, so be sure to look up for the aurora borealis!

News from the Week

This week the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore reported that after several years of limited piping plover nesting activity in the Glen Haven area, four pairs of the federally endangered shorebird have made that beach their home for the summer. It's an easily accessible location provides visitors an excellent opportunity to view a rare bird in its natural habitat, as well as have questions answered by National Park Service employees and volunteers who will be on site throughout the nesting season. Click through for all the details and a video!

We also had a cool video on the history of Leland that includes some great old photos.

Jacob Wheeler of the Glen Arbor Sun writes that in addition to the most beautiful place in America, second healthiest place nationwide, Leelanau County is on the verge of becoming a prime bicycle destination too! He took a ride down the nearly-completed first phase from the Sleeping Bear Dune Climb to downtown Glen Arbor on the brand new Sleeping Bear Heritage Trail. The  trail officially opens on June 20, 2012 and could one day stretch 27 miles, from the Leelanau-Benzie County line to Good Harbor! Click here for the video.

The Sun also notes that Leelanau County will collect household hazardous waste and electronics on Saturday June 2.

Come to the Traverse City Wine & Art Festival on Saturday, June 30th

Coming Events

Leelanau Peninsula BirdFest

The Second Annual Leelanau Peninsula BirdFest takes place May 30 - June 3. It's a chance to see more than a hundred different species of nesting birds, including the rare Great Lakes Piping Plover. There's all kinds of field trips and special guests including Jerry Weinrich, "Godfather of the Kirtland’s Warbler" and keynote speaker Greg Butcher, the Director of Conservation for National Audubon.

2012 Leland Wine & Food Festival

The Leland Wine & Food Festival returns to the Leland Harbor on Saturday, June 9, 2012. Come enjoy a day in Leland's historic Fishtown tasting wines from local wineries and food offerings from local restaurants and vendors. There's also live music in the park all day and of course plenty of beautiful views of Lake Michigan and the Manitou Islands. Admission is $12 and includes an etched wine glass and two tickets for wine tasting. Click the link for participating wineries and food vendors.

Some other events include the Fiber Frenzy at the Old Art Building (May 25), Leland Wine & Food Festival (June 9), Leelanau Artists at the Old Art Building (June 1), "Pots and Paintings" at Center Gallery (June 1),  HOUSEHOLD HAZARDOUS WASTE collection (June 2), Traverse Colantha Walker Dairy Festival (June 10), Glen Arbor BBQ and Brew Festival (June 16) and the Glen Arbor Solstice Half Marathon & 5k (June 16).

The Bay Theatre in Suttons Bay has the new Tim Burton film Dark Shadows (PG-13) starring Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer and Helena Bonham Carter playing through May 31st.

The Weather

It's a glorious 89 degrees under sunny skies  at Leelanau Coffee Roasting in Glen Arbor. The record high for a May 24th is 93 degrees from 2010. That's just out of reach in contrast with the waaay out of reach 25 from 1956. Expect winds to pick up and temps to remain in the upper 80s for the rest of the day. We might get some rain overnight with gusty SW winds at 15-25. Tomorrow will be a little cooler, but beautiful with sunny skies and a high in the low to mid 70s. The weekend outlook calls for a high around 80 on Saturday and then near 90 on Sunday and Monday with a 30% chance of showers all three days but plenty of sun as well!

Chris Johnson shared his photo from last night of the boat launch in Glen Arbor. Click it for a larger view and visit his Facebook page for more!

More weather resources for Leelanau & Traverse City on the Leelanau Almanac!

Sand & Shadows. by John Levanen

It's been a very busy time at Leelanau.com. More precisely, at Leelanau Communications, Inc., the company that produces Leelanau.com. In addition to a lot of work for the Leelanau Peninsula Vintners Association, including the forthcoming Traverse City Wine & Art Festival, we've been working to redo Leelanau.com to take advantage of social media including Facebook, our Leelanau.com Flickr group and our This Week in Leelanau email.

Last week the northern lights made an appearance over Leelanau, and Ken Scott got out and took some great shots! There's one below and you can see more in his Northern Lights slideshow or on his Facebook.

Northern Lights are usually a rare treat but lately we've been seeing them more often. A little over a year ago astronomer Dick Cookman - who owns Enerdyne in Suttons Bay - noted that we are right in the middle of the best aurora borealis viewing in a decade, so hopefully there's more on the way.

Ken also has a short aurora time lapse and you there are also see two short time lapses by Guy Strong that you can watch here and here.

Real Bikes with Bear Power!

In addition to signs in the sky, we've also seen signs of spring in the form of morel mushrooms and cherry blossoms. Both are out there now, though the morels are fairly elusive and the cherry blossoms sparser than normal. Another sign of spring, pair of Sandhill Cranes, were caught at Glen Lake by Mark Miller.

Coming Events

Artist in Residence Presentation ~ Thursday, May 3rd

Linda Walker from Mattawan, MI, is a muralist and decorative painter while pursuing a Graduate Teaching Certificate in Art Education at Grand Valley State University. She will use her residency to focus on plein air painting with the goal of expanding her professional portfolio. Attend her presentation Thursday night at the Glen Arbor Art Association Office.

Spring Sip & Savor Wine Tour ~ Friday, May 5th & Saturday May 6th

Join the 19 wineries of the Leelanau Peninsula Vintners Association the weekend of May 5-6, 2012 for the Leelanau Peninsula Vintners Association’s annual Spring Sip & Savor wine trail event. In addition to food & wine pairings at each winery, participants are encouraged to participate in the Sip o’ de Mayo Hat Contest try to win one of the prizes that many of the wineries will be offering and the fabulous Grand Prize.

A few other items of interest from our Leelanau Calendar at the Suttons Bay Powwow this Friday from 1:30 - 9 PM, the Traverse City Chocolate Festival this Sunday from 1-4 PM and a pair of Leelanau Chamber events, the Business Expo from 11-6 on Wednesday at the Strongheart Center and the Chamber's Business After Hours next Thursday at 5:30 at Sugarfoot Saloon.

Many more on the Leelanau Calendar!

The Bay Theatre in Suttons Bay has Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (PG-13) starring Emily Blunt, Ewan McGregor, Kristin Scott Thomas ending tonight. Starting Friday is 21 Jump Street (R) starring Jonah Hill, Channing Tatum, Brie Larson, Dave Franco, Ice Cube.

The Bluebird in Leland invites you to their Ethnic Dinners every Wednesday and Thursday through the winter & spring. Their season is winding down, but you can head out tonight for Italian and next week for Southwestern featuring Camarones Cozumel, Tortilla Crusted Snapper, Manchengo Chicken Chili Satays and Black Bean, Corn, and Portugese Sausage Nacho w/fire roasted bell peppers & Jalapenos!

The Weather

It's 60 degrees and raining hard at Leelanau Coffee Roasting in Glen Arbor as severe thunderstorms rake the area. They've dumped buckets of (hopefully) morel-bringing rain with more to come. The record high for a May 3rd is 88 from 1955 with the low of 22 set in 1967. Highs are expected in the low 70s today. Rain and thunderstorms will continue overnight, bringing up to an inch of rain by tomorrow. Expect rain to move out tomorrow by noon, bringing mostly sunny skies with highs in the mid to upper 60s. The weekend outlook calls for sunny skies and low 70s on Saturday and mostly cloudy skies and low 70s on Sunday.

Ken Scott captured the Northern Lights late Sunday night. Several more photos from the night are right here and you can also view a short video below!

Ken shot this on Saturday night in the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. He says that the brightness of the night sky is a reflection of iso and shutter speed (5 photos @ iso 1600 and 30 second exposures). Click to view larger on black!

This photo of the Northern Lights over Fishtown was taken by Ken Scott in October of 2011. Today on Absolute Michigan we posted a feature about a solar flare that may bring northern lights to Leelanau's skies tonight (and potentially over the next few days):

NASA's Space Weather site is the place to go for Aurora Borealis forecasting as they help make sense of the data the space agency receives about solar flares and their impact on earth's atmosphere. Yesterday they gave Northern Lights watchers a lot of hope with this news:

This morning, Jan. 23rd around 0359 UT, big sunspot 1402 erupted, producing a long-duration M9-class solar flare. The explosion's M9-ranking puts it on the threshold of being an X-flare, the most powerful kind. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured the flare's extreme ultraviolet flash (shown right or in short movie right here)

The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) and NASA's STEREO-B spacecraft detected a CME rapidly emerging from the blast site: movie. Analysts at the Goddard Space Weather Lab say the leading edge of the CME will reach Earth on Jan. 24 at 14:18UT (+/- 7 hours).

That means it's hitting the Earth 11 AM - 6 PM EST, but this level of intensity makes the Northern Lights a real possibility for the next couple of days so definitely LOOK UP tonight and tomorrow if there's any break in the clouds! If the northern lights hit, our Northern Lights Log will light up with reports. You can also learn a lot more about the Northern Lights at Michigan in Pictures and also at aurora borealis on Leelanau.com!

The Leelanau Enterprise reports that this week the 90' champion cottonwood near the corner of River and Lake streets will be taken down. The tree is estimated to be 109 years old, and clones of the tree have already been planted on north Lake Leelanau at the John Suelzer Memorial East Leland Park in East Leland.

According to the Leland Report, the operation starts today and Annie at Aurora Borealis Designs shared the photo to the right.

Trish P has a great memorial. She writes:

Yes. We are tree-huggers. People stare and point but we don't care. For years we have hugged our favorite tree in all of Michigan. A Champion in Leland, well over 100 years old. Think about it. This tree was likely here during WWI! It has stood the test of time against savage Lake Michigan weather, pavement and a boardwalk over its water-gathering roots, and droves of people walking by without even noticing it!

There was talk a few years back of taking it down. A foundation was formed, an arborist hired and it was given a little more time. Lately though, it's been losing more and more branches and struggling to leaf out. It's really at the end of its life and sadly, next month it will be taken down. Downtown Leland will not look the same.

It's really something to see in person. Hope you had a chance!

Someday there may be another Champion due to science!

Group Prepares Champion Tree Clones.

Again I am reminded that we are not just taking photos. We are recording history. Perhaps not earth shattering events, but history nonetheless.

Ken shot this last night in Fishtown - see it bigger along with a couple more in his slideshow.

The display of the aurora borealis was one of the finest in a decade and was part of an EXPLOSION of Northern Lights that was seen all over Michigan!

Read on for the news, weather, events and photos from this week in Leelanau.
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