Northern Lights over Fond du Lac Sunday night. Photo by Tom Otte Imaging was taken at the FdL Yacht Club at 11:50pm. Strong Northern lights were very visible to the naked eye with flashing and pulsing. Tom is pictured here in a self portrait.
Residents living in more than a dozen U.S. states had a chance to see the northern lights Sunday thanks to recent activity on the Sun. A coronal mass ejection and a minor solar flare happened Friday night, according to NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center. In addition to sparking a geomagnetic storm watch through Monday, the solar activity means the northern lights will be visible as far south as Nebraska and Iowa. Coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, are explosions of plasma and magnetic material from the Sun that can reach Earth in as little as 15 to 18 hours, NOAA explains. Slower CMEs, like the one observed Friday, can take days to impact us. While both solar flares and CMEs (which can occur at the same time) can impact navigation, communication and radio signals on Earth, CMEs are able to create a stunning show in the night sky. According to NASA, CMEs can create currents in Earth’s magnetic fields that send particles to the North and South Poles. When those particles interact with oxygen and nitrogen, they can create auroras. While Canada and Alaska were forecasted to have the best viewing, Washington, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Minnesota also were able to see the northern lights Sunday night. Parts of Idaho, Wisconsin, Oregon, Wyoming, Iowa, Nebraska, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine did as well. Viewing is expected to dimish Monday night, with only the northernmost parts of some states – Washington, Montana, North Dakota, and Minnesota – forecasted to have a low likelihood of seeing the aurora. This is just the latest round of northern lights that have been visible across the northern U.S. this year. It’s all thanks to the sun flipping its magnetic poles, an activity it does over an 11-year period.
