Did you see the Northern Lights in Happy Valley? Share your photos with us!
The Northern Lights — or aurora borealis — were visible from some parts of Centre County on Sunday night.
Bob Larson, senior meteorologist at AccuWeather, said there was an “impressive” outbreak of the Northern Lights, which was fairly widespread. They could be seen from areas of Centre County such as Penns Valley.
The Northern Lights are most commonly seen near the North Pole, hence its name.
“It’s usually much more prevalent in high northern latitudes, whether that’s Finland, Norway, Alaska, Northern Canada, Northern Europe, etc. That’s where it usually occurs. But for there to be Northern Lights visible farther south in southern latitudes such as Pennsylvania, it’s got to be a very impressive geomagnetic storm, as this one apparently was,” Larson said.
It’s rare — but not unheard of — for Northern Lights to be visible in central Pennsylvania. Larson recalled a three-year period in the 1990s when he saw a very vivid display of Northern Lights two or three times in State College.
What causes this beautiful light show in the night sky? Larson said in order to see the Northern Lights, there needs to be an interaction between a magnetized gas that has erupted from the sun, which can occur from a solar storm, or as astronomers call it, a geomagnetic storm.
“This is something that occurs on the sun periodically. There are patterns where you can go months at a time where it happens frequently and then we can go several months to a year or more where it hardly happens at all,” Larson said.
The last several years have been “relatively quiet” and there have been very few of these outbreaks, Larson said. But in recent months, they’ve become more frequent. There was a significant geomagnetic storm that occurred a few days ago, Larson said.
“Usually there’s a few day lag before any effects of that could reach Earth. And sure enough, a few days later, Sunday night, Monday morning, is when we saw the Northern Lights.”
There were some reports of the Northern Lights seen Sunday night as far south as Arizona, Oklahoma, Arkansas and North Carolina. That’s “mind boggling,” Larson said.
Typically there is a “one night peak,” but Larson said it’s possible to see them again Monday night. If they’re visible, they’ll be less pronounced each night following the peak as they retreat farther north.
Unfortunately with the aurora, a timeframe of when it’ll appear can’t be predicted “with any reasonable sense of certainty.”
“Even though this was an impressive geomagnetic storm, it was just that vague sense that within a couple of nights there would be a pretty good outbreak of the Northern Lights, but (there’s) no way of knowing which night would be the best and where it would be. That’s the nature of trying to predict these things. It’s not like trying to predict a thunderstorm,” he said.
If it were to happen Monday night, the colors would be less vivid and to see them, you’d want to be in an area where it is dark and away from any light pollution. You’ll also need a clear sky. There were a fair amount of clouds in Happy Valley during the day Monday, but Larson said with time, they should break up and clear out. Although he doesn’t expect it to totally clear up by nighttime, there’s a chance that the Northern Lights will be visible if it occurs again.
Did you see the Northern Lights in Centre County this week? Send your photos to cdtnewstips@centredaily.com.
