The Space Weather Prediction Center says the Northern Lights could put on a show for millions of people as far south as Alabama and Northern California on Sunday night after several coronal mass ejections reach Earth earlier in the day.
Millions of people in the U.S. as far south as Alabama could be in for another dazzling display of the Northern Lights on Sunday night as Earth continues to be blasted by a historic geomagnetic storm that hasn’t been experienced in decades.
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Northern Lights from Seattle during an extreme geomagnetic storm on May 10, 2024. (NWS Seattle)
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Northern Lights from Mukilteo, Washington during an extreme geomagnetic storm on May 10, 2024. (Scott Sistek)
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Northern Lights from Mukilteo, Washington during an extreme geomagnetic storm on May 10, 2024. (Scott Sistek)
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Northern Lights from Reno, Nevada during an extreme geomagnetic storm on May 10, 2024. (NWS Reno)
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Northern Lights from Riverton, Wyoming during an extreme geomagnetic storm on May 10, 2024. (NWS Riverton)
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Northern Lights from Hastings, Nebraska during an extreme geomagnetic storm on May 10, 2024. (NWS Hastings)
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Northern Lights from Great Falls, Montana during an extreme geomagnetic storm on May 10, 2024. ( )
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Northern Lights from Missoula, Montana during an extreme geomagnetic storm on May 10, 2024. (NWS Missoula)
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Northern Lights from Shreveport, Louisiana during an extreme geomagnetic storm on May 10, 2024. (NWS Shreveport)
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Northern Lights from Great Falls, Montana during an extreme geomagnetic storm on May 10, 2024. (NWS Great Falls, Montana)
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Top Image Northern Lights ( )
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Fort Lauderdale Northern Lights (Luke Culver)
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Clear skies led the Northern Lights to be visible in Texas and New Mexico (@NWSElPaso)
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FOX Weather Storm Tracker Mark Sudduth caught a stunning view of the aurora over South Carolina while in a plane. (Mark Sudduth)
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View from Concord, N.C. (Jay Caceres)
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Outside of the NWS office in Caribou, Maine. ( )
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Forecasters at the NWS office in Calera, AL saw the aurora and the space station. (@NWSBirmingham)
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10 May 2024, Baden-Württemberg, Freiburg: Northern lights appear over the Dreisamtal valley in the Black Forest near Freiburg. (Photo by Valentin Gensch/picture alliance via Getty Images)
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10 May 2024, Brandenburg, Sieversdorf: Light green and violet-reddish auroras glow in the night sky in the Oder-Spree district of East Brandenburg. The northern lights (aurora borealis) are produced by a cloud of electrically charged particles from a solar storm in the earth’s atmosphere. (Photo by Patrick Pleul/picture alliance via Getty Images)
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The aurora borealis, also known as the northern lights, glow on the horizon over Basingstoke in Hampshire. Picture date: Friday May 10, 2024. (Photo by Patrick Pleul/picture alliance via Getty Images)
The sky was filled with vibrant colors of green, pink and purple from the Northern Lights as far south as Florida and Texas on Friday night after a massive sunspot the width of 17 Earths spewed solar flares, leading to geomagnetic storm activity reaching Level 5 “extreme” conditions.
A weather camera north of Seattle captured Friday’s dazzling display of Northern Lights.
After a brief drop to Level 3 and 4 conditions, solar activity reenergized Saturday, and storms returned to Level 5 conditions, according to NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC).
The SWPC said another series of coronal mass ejections (CME) associated with the solar flare activity in the same region over the past several days are expected to merge and arrive at Earth on Sunday afternoon.
(FOX Weather)
Because of that, a Geomagnetic Storm Watch was issued for Sunday as Level 4 “severe” conditions and possibly Level 5 “extreme” geomagnetic storms are likely to follow.
Space weather forecasters say watches at that level are very rare, and the Northern Lights may be visible from Sunday night into early Monday over much of the northern half of the U.S. and maybe as far south as Alabama and Northern California.