Stargazers were treated to an unprecedented sight in Southern California overnight: the Aurora Borealis. The Northern Lights were seen from the local mountains, a rare treat thanks to a geomagnetic solar storm. The ongoing solar storm has the potential to disrupt communications, but it may also bring the Northern Lights back again tonight for an encore.

Cloud cover made it a challenge to see the spectacular light show across much of Southern California Friday night, but stargazers in some deserts and the San Gabriel and San Bernardino Mountains were blessed with a dazzling sky show last night.

The best viewing spots to take in the phenomenon are the mountains and deserts, away from the artificial lights of densely populated areas.

“This is absolutely unprecedented to see this in Southern California,” photographer Mark Girardeau of Orange County Outdoors wrote on Instagram at about 1 a.m. Saturday, accompanied by a photograph taken near Mountain High in Wrightwood, high up in the San Gabriel Mountains.

“It’s viewable as far south as San Diego and Mexico,” Girardeau added. “It would be visible from Orange County if it weren’t for the clouds.”

Girardeau was joined by other local photographers including Patrick Coyne of Torrance.

“Last night absolutely felt like a dream. We had the privilege of seeing the Northern lights here in Southern California!” Coyne posted, along with a video showing the dazzling display. “The geomagnetic storm had a KP index of 8 which is why we got to see it all the way down here at Mountain High. The entire sky showed this gorgeous red/pink color and you could absolutely see it with your eyes.”

The lights were caused by an unusually strong geomagnetic storm that erupted from a sunspot cluster on the sun.

The NOAA said Saturday that “storming of extreme intensity would continue through at least Sunday,” and “several CMEs (coronal mass ejections) are anticipated to merge and arrive at Earth on May 12th.”

The Kp index, the measure of the strength of a burst of solar energy, is predicted to be at 8 overnight Friday. Auroras become likely with a Kp index of 5.

“Watches at this level are very rare,” NOAA said. “This is an unusual event.”

The last time NOAA issued a watch for a “severe” geomagnetic storm was in January 2005.

A severe geomagnetic storm can also trigger GPS problems, interfere with satellite communications, cause high-frequency blackouts, disrupting power and communications.

The post Northern Lights Dazzled SoCal: How To See Tonight’s Encore appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

Space weather forecasters expect March to be the best month in two decades to see the curtains of mostly green but also pink, purple and red that normally are confined to areas around Earth’s North Pole.

When conditions are right, the phenomenon can be seen as far south as Florida and Arizona, Business Insider reports. In April of last year, it was photographed over Mt. Shasta in Northern California.

There are a couple of reasons March could be an opportunity for more Americans to see the northern lights.

One is that solar activity, which plays a crucial role in the appearance of northern lights, ramps up around the time of the seasonal equinoxes (the vernal, or spring, equinox is on Tuesday, March 19). Historically, March has seen more auroras than any other month, although October, the first full month after the autumnal, or fall, equinox, is a close second, according to a NASA study of 75 years worth of data.

April and September were the third- and fourth-busiest months for auroras.

The biggest aurora event of 2023 occurred last March, when a series of solar activities triggered auroras powerful enough to be seen in places along the country’s southern border.

Geomagnetic storms on our star’s surface cause coronal holes that spew out electronically charged particles carried millions of miles by solar wind into Earth’s magnetic field. Around the time of the equinoxes, the sun and Earth’s poles are aligned almost perpendicularly, which allows more of the wind to make it through.

Secondly, the “solar maximum” peak of an 11-year solar cycle in which the sun’s magnetic fields flip between the North and South poles is expected to occur this year. Like Earth, the sun has negative and positive polarity. During the reversal of polarity, negative becomes positive and positive becomes negative, and that creates more sunspots and space weather events.

The frequency of CMEs, which are huge bubbles of coronal plasma threaded by magnetic field lines, varies during each solar cycle — about once a week at solar minimum, but an average of two or three a day at solar maximum.

The current cycle, known as Solar Cycle 25, is expected to reach solar maximum in 2024, a year ahead of schedule, according to the Space Weather Prediction Center, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

People who live in places like Alaska, Canada and Greenland, which are near Earth’s North Pole, have the best chances of seeing the ethereal auroras. But the powerful eruptions have made the northern lights more common over the past several months, sending the northern lights far south into states like Florida, Texas and Arizona.

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