{"id":25379,"date":"2024-10-11T15:46:01","date_gmt":"2024-10-11T21:46:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/why-the-northern-lights-dazzled-the-sky-farther-south-than-normal\/"},"modified":"2024-10-11T21:46:01","modified_gmt":"2024-10-11T21:46:01","slug":"why-the-northern-lights-dazzled-the-sky-farther-south-than-normal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/why-the-northern-lights-dazzled-the-sky-farther-south-than-normal\/","title":{"rendered":"Why the northern lights dazzled the sky farther south than normal"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The
The northern lights, photographed at 8:15 p.m. Thursday from County Road 26 north of Cortez. (Sam Green\/Special to The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Another in a series of unusually strong solar storms<\/a> hitting Earth produced stunning skies full of pinks, purples, greens and blues farther south than normal, including into parts of Germany, the United Kingdom, New England and New York City.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a pretty extensive display yet again,\u201d said Shawn Dahl, a space weather forecaster at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration\u2019s Space Weather Prediction Center. He said the center has gotten reports of northern lights sightings as far south as New Mexico. \u201cIt\u2019s been a wonderful year.\u201d<\/p>\n

There were no immediate reports of disruptions to power and communications.<\/p>\n

NOAA issued a severe geomagnetic storm alert<\/a> on Wednesday after an outburst from the sun was d<\/a>etected earlier in the week. Such a storm increases the chance of auroras \u2013 also known as northern lights \u2013 and can temporarily disrupt power and radio signals.<\/p>\n

NOAA\u2019s Friday forecast<\/a> shows continued higher-than-normal activity, but the chances for another overnight show are slim farther south of Canada and the northern Plains states.<\/p>\n

The northern lights were spotted and photographed by former Journal<\/em> photographer Sam Green.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs far as Colorado goes, it\u2019s far less likely to see it tonight, but there is a chance, a little fainter perhaps maybe much further up in northern Colorado, to glimpse it, if conditions are favorable for a brief period tonight,\u201d Dahl told The Colorado Sun<\/a> on Friday morning.<\/p>\n

What causes northern lights?<\/strong><\/div>\n

The sun sends more than heat and light to Earth \u2013 it sends energy and charged particles known as the solar wind. But sometimes that solar wind becomes a storm. The sun\u2019s outer atmosphere occasionally \u201cburps\u201d out huge bursts of energy called coronal mass ejections. They produce solar storms, also known as geomagnetic storms, according to NOAA.<\/p>\n

The Earth\u2019s magnetic field shields us from much of it, but particles can travel down the magnetic field lines along the north and south poles and into Earth\u2019s atmosphere.<\/p>\n

When the particles interact with the gases in our atmosphere, they can produce light \u2013 blue and purple from nitrogen, green and red from oxygen.<\/p>\n

Dahl said this storm generated a particularly vibrant display when it hit because the orientation of the storm\u2019s magnetism lined up well with the Earth\u2019s. \u201cWe stayed well connected,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Why have there been so many solar storms lately? <\/strong><\/div>\n

Solar activity increases and decreases in a cycle that last about 11 years, astronomers say. The sun appears to be near the peak of that cycle, known as a solar maximum.<\/p>\n

In May, the sun shot out its biggest flare in almost two decades. That came days after severe solar storms pummeled Earth and triggered auroras in unaccustomed places across the Northern Hemisphere.<\/p>\n

There will likely be more to come. Dahl said we remain \u201cin the grip\u201d of the solar maximum and it isn\u2019t likely to start to fade until early 2026.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re in for more of the experiences we had last night,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

How can you best see the northern lights?<\/strong><\/div>\n

NOAA advises those who hope to see the northern lights to get away from city lights.<\/p>\n

The best viewing time is usually within an hour or two before or after midnight, and the agency says the best occasions are around the spring and fall equinoxes due to the way the solar wind interacts with Earth\u2019s magnetic field.<\/p>\n

\"An
An aurora borealis, also known as the northern lights, lights up the night sky off Lake Michigan and the St. Joseph Lighthouse, Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024, in St. Joseph, Michigan (Don Campbell\/The Herald-Palladium via AP)<\/span>dur-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"An
An aurora borealis, also known as the northern lights, is seen in the night sky along with the Big Dipper constellation on Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024, in Moscow, Idaho. (AP Photo\/Ted S. Warren)<\/span>dur-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"An
An aurora borealis, also known as the northern lights, makes an appearance over pumpjacks as they draw out oil and gas from well heads near Cremona, Alberta, Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024. (Jeff McIntosh\/The Canadian Press via AP)<\/span>dur-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The
The northern lights appear over Anchorage, Alaska, early the morning of Friday, Oct. 11, 2024. (AP Photo\/Mark Thiessen)<\/span>dur-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

in Southwest Colorado and New Mexico<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25380,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1363,28,414],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-25379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-astronomy","tag-headlines","tag-weather"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25379\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25379"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=25379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}