Why Americans Are Now In The Best Place To See The Northern Lights
Parts of the U.S. and Canada are currently the best places to see the Northern Lights, but the approaching solstice and shrinking darkness windows means that's not going to last long.
Space weather forecasters predicted only a mild G1 geomagnetic storm this week — but what unfolded was far more dramatic.
Geomagnetic storms — which cause aurora on Earth — are rated from G1 to G5. What actually happened late on May 28 was rated G3, which saw the aurora viewline stretch into 17 U.S. states. Aurora was even seen in Italy.
This particular storm happened because a co-rotating interaction region — a turbulent gap between fast and slow-moving solar wind streams — struck Earth's atmosphere, according to Spaceweather.com.
Something similar happened on May 17 when a coronal mass ejection — a clump of super-charged particles hurled into the solar system in the wake of a solar flare — struck Earth's atmosphere instead of, as was forecast, missing the planet. Again, aurora were triggered unexpectedly.
The Northern Lights are caused by the solar wind, a stream of charged particles from the sun that interacts with Earth's magnetic field. As charged particles strike Earth's magnetic field, they accelerate down its magnetic field lines at the north and south poles, exciting particles in the atmosphere to create ovals of green and red.
Aurora is usually seen in polar regions near 70° latitude, but during strong geomagnetic storms, the auroral oval can expand, with displays reaching as far as 40 degrees — or even lower in rare cases.
The root cause for aurora being seen more southerly in North America is, of course, the sun's solar maximum period, which was declared by NOAA and NASA in October 2024. However, there's a delicate balance of latitude and time of year when it comes to the visibility of aurora. To understand, consider this: the G5 geomagnetic storm on May 10-11, 2024 — the most intense since 2004 and possibly for hundreds of years — was seen across North America, as far south as Florida. But those at 70 degrees north, where the aurora oval typically sits over almost permanently, saw nothing. In the Northern Hemisphere, North America and Europe had the very best views of that display. It's happening again. But why?
The aurora season in the Northern Hemisphere is typically said to be between September and March, essentially between the equinoxes when there are more hours of darkness than daylight. That's not the case now, of course, with the farther you travel north, the fewer hours of darkness. The reason? It doesn't truly get dark in May across the auroral zone. For example, in Anchorage, Alaska, at 61 degrees north, sunset is currently at 11:15 p.m., and there is no astronomical darkness. Along the U.S.-Canada border, true darkness — known as astronomical night — currently lasts from about 11:00 p.m. to 2:30 a.m., offering a narrow window for aurora viewing. There's a cut-off line in North America that's gradually rising northwards as we approach the solstice on June 21, with astronomical darkness becoming even shorter by the end of June. Meanwhile, the aurora viewline, as forecast by NOAA, drifts farther south when a geomagnetic storm is predicted. That makes the northern U.S. states ideal for aurora viewing right now. And if a geomagnetic storm strikes, the lights could stretch even farther south — where longer nights make sightings more likely.
Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.
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