AA7FV - unusual spot

There was another moderate geomagnetic field disturbance in the early evening last night, up to Kp=3.  Into the morning here, the ring current of the auroral oval was quite high, up at around 38GW.  I didn't receive any unusual spots (14MHz), other than one or two, very short skip signals from no further than PA/ON.

Interestingly, at 09:00UT (actually, also a little earlier, but the spot didn't make it to the database), I spotted AA7FV, who uses a large rhombic antenna with one of its two main lobes towards Europe.

This is another anomalous spot worth considering.  First, the first vestiges of an illuminated ionosphere lay 5500km to the east (over the southern tip of Greenland) of AA7FV at the time of my spotting him.

Conditions at the time of the spot of 09:00UT.  Note where the path crosses the greyline's start (astronomical twilight).  Image: DX Atlas, with permission.

Even when we consider the 'fuzziness' of what height we are considering in respect of the ionosphere, it's clear that AA7FV was well out of sight of it at the time.  This is more so the case, as there are hills lying very close by in the direction of Europe from AA7FV, reducing the possibility of the lowest propagation angles having an impact:

View from AA7FV's area towards Europe.  Image: Bing Maps.

I haven't spotted AA7FV under quiet geomagnetic conditions, so it's pretty clear that this spot is related to enhanced field activity.  This is the forecast model for the time:

The path from AA7FV to me thus took it well into the auroral zone.  It seems to be that free electrons were probably available in large numbers somewhere at the southern edge of the modelled aurora, such that AA7FV was in sight of them, allowing propagation.  It's still remarkable that the path is going through such apparently disturbed areas, yet still being decoded successfully here; WSPR is not particularly robust under varying propagation.