DX on 12m!

Yesterday morning saw a very good opening from Europe to VK at 24MHz.  It's a long time since I saw VK on that band.  Others report that VK appeared on 10m also.

Unfortunately, I was slightly too far north to achieve a QSO on FT8 with low power, but others in southern parts of the UK, and across mainland Europe, were successful.

Part of the wintertime Es story? (C) MW1CFN

There was no obvious geomagnetic cause for this path to open.  At this time of year, a newly-discovered teleconnection at mesospheric height (~85km) between the southern and northern hemisphere strengthens again as the austral midsummer approaches.  We're currently just 20 days from that point.  At the equivalent stage in the northern season, strong Es and other high altitude phenomena, such as NLC, would be appearing regularly and strongly.

So maybe yesterday's opening was a form of multi-hop Es, assisted by the north-south flow of air, incorporating conductive material from meteor ablation, covered in charged ice, at altitude.  It's interesting to wonder, certainly...