After two memorable showings in 2024, the aurora borealis stepped out for a brilliant encore performance on Tuesday night into early Wednesday, with bright red and some green visible to the naked eye and more intensely picked up by digital cameras between persistent patches of mid-level clouds over Southwest and Southside Virginia.
The northern lights were visible for a few hours all the way to the southern border of the U.S., and even beyond.
The intensity and unusual southern visibility of the show brought comparisons to the two big aurora episodes of 2024, on May 10 and October 10. This was certainly the most intense aurora episode since those two events, which were themselves the most widely visible auroras in the U.S. and globally since 2003.
Tuesday’s solar storm has been rated as a G4 storm on a 0 to 5 scale. The solar storm of May 2024 reached the top G5 level while the October storm was also rated G4.
The sun continues to move through a stronger period of activity, emitting large “coronal mass ejections” of charged particles that interact with the Earth’s magnetic field, producing the aurora in the upper reaches of our atmosphere. Besides auroras, these ejections have potential to cause communications and utility disruptions, depending on intensity and how exactly each event is focused. The core of most coronal mass ejections, even some producing highly visible auroras, don’t hit Earth directly.
There is potential for aurora displays on additional nights this week as at least two more coronal mass ejections of solar particles approach Earth.
Space weather forecasting has gotten very good at identifying these ejections of solar particles and generally projecting when auroras may be more intense, but isn’t yet precise in predicting parameters of aurora intensity and how widely it can be seen until an event is imminent or under way.
If you have an open north view, especially away from city lights, take a few ganders north the next couple of nights. The aurora is often weak to the naked eye, with milky white light or weak colors, but can be picked up with more intensity by smartphones on night settings, which many now shift to automatically in darkness.
Occasionally, such as for a while last night, the colors are brighter to the naked eye, but never as bright as digital cameras are capable of picking up.
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Journalist Kevin Myatt has been writing about weather for 20 years. His weekly column, appearing on Wednesdays, is sponsored by Oakey’s, a family-run, locally-owned funeral home with locations throughout the Roanoke Valley. Sign up for his weekly newsletter: