A powerful burst of energy from the sun streaming past Earth painted the night sky as far south as Florida with stunning northern lights displays overnight Tuesday.
The dancing red and green and purple hues were spotted across a vast portion the US and unusually far south: in Texas, Alabama, Georgia and even Florida. In case you missed it, there’s another chance to see them in parts of the US on Wednesday, albeit it may not reach as far south.
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Here's what ABC15 Meteorologist Jorge Torres says about viewing conditions in Arizona on Wednesday:
There’s a chance Arizona could catch another glimpse of the northern lights tonight!
If the geomagnetic storm is strong enough, you might spot them on the northern horizon. Be sure to email your photos to share@abc15.com.
A few high clouds are possible, but they shouldn’t block much of the view.
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It’s happening because several eruptions of energy from the sun, known as coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, have been interacting with Earth’s magnetic field. The Space Weather Prediction Center issued a G4 “severe” geomagnetic storm watch for Wednesday. G4 is the second-strongest level on the five-step scale. A G4 event was responsible for Tuesday’s displays.
What a G4 storm means
Geomagnetic storms happen when solar wind rushes through Earth’s magnetosphere. Charged particles from the sun interact with gases in the Earth’s atmosphere and cause stunning northern lights, or glowing curtains of green, red and purple light that ripple across the sky.
The different colors happen because of the interaction with different gases, according to NASA.
It’s not all beauty and wonder; a G4 storm brings potential for voltage control problems in power systems, GPS navigation errors and intermittent issues with radio and satellite operations.
This latest round of solar eruptions includes several CMEs from an active sunspot cluster. Shawn Dahl, a space weather forecaster at the Space Weather Prediction Center, notes an additional CME is expected midday Wednesday.
That could cause more aurora activity to occur on Wednesday evening, with the best chance of viewing from northern New England into the Great Lakes, upper Midwest and Pacific Northwest. However, cloud cover will be an obstacle.
Areas from the Dakotas to northern and central Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan might have the best shot at the clearest skies this evening. Viewing could be obscured by clouds in the Northwest, New England and upstate New York.
For most people, the impacts will be limited to breathtaking skies, not power outages. But it’s a good reminder that no matter how advanced we become as a society, the sun still calls the shots.
