A vivid display of the Northern Lights illuminated skies across Pennsylvania and much of the Northeast late Wednesday, capping a two-night stretch of unusually widespread auroras fueled by one of the strongest geomagnetic storms of the year.
The same green and pink bands that dazzled skywatchers on Tuesday returned with similar intensity Wednesday night, driven by a series of coronal mass ejections that have been striking Earth’s magnetic field since late last week. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the third and strongest wave reached the atmosphere Wednesday evening, extending the aurora oval unusually far south.
Residents from western and central Pennsylvania to the Lehigh Valley and the Philadelphia suburbs reported bright pillars, shimmering curtains and pulses of pink and green after 10 p.m., matching NOAA’s projected viewing window of 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. Clear breaks in cloud cover across much of the state made the show especially accessible, with rural areas offering the darkest views.
The lights were visible across a broad band of the country for the second straight night. NOAA’s aurora viewline map showed potential visibility in more than two dozen states stretching from Washington and Oregon through the Upper Midwest, Great Lakes and New England, including New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.
The ongoing storm has proven powerful enough to push the aurora to unusually low latitudes, a phenomenon that typically occurs only once or twice per solar cycle. Reports from Tuesday night indicated visibility as far south as Florida, underscoring the reach of the current event.
Auroras occur when charged particles from the sun travel down Earth’s magnetic field and collide with atmospheric gases, producing distinct colors depending on altitude. Pink hues generally form below 60 miles, while green bands shine between roughly 75 and 110 miles.
Source: ABC News