Anyone who missed the Northern Lights last night, caused by the strongest solar storm since 2003, will, with a bit of luck, have another chance on Sunday evening. We’ve put together some information on how to determine when you have the best chance to see the celestial spectacle.
According to the Austrian Severe Weather Center (UMZ), which is operated by UBIMET, the largest private weather service in Austria, the arrival of two more CMEs – two large-scale solar flares that emit plasma composed mainly of electrons and protons – are expected. . Because this plasma hits the already severely disturbed magnetosphere of the Earth, there is a good chance that the Northern Lights will appear again in Austria.
Good conditions on the north side of the Alps
The weather forecast looks slightly less favorable in the south and east of the country than on Saturday night, but at least occasionally larger gaps in the clouds will appear during the course of Sunday night. According to information from UWZ, good conditions can be expected again on the north side of the Alps.
Geosphere Austria (formerly the Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics) announced on Facebook and Instagram on Friday that “reasonably good observation conditions for the Northern Lights can be expected in Austria” on Sunday evening. There are at least four solar storms heading towards Earth, but it is difficult to estimate how strong the geomagnetic storm (and therefore also the Northern Lights, mind you) will actually be, it was emphasized.
View light-sensitive webcams
It is useful to look at light-sensitive webcams, such as some cameras in the Alps – for example foto-webcam.eu or raxalpe.panomax.com. Information about the probability of the occurrence of visible northern lights (also called aurora borealis or northern lights, note) can be found HERE. They are easy to observe, especially from as dark a location as possible.
On Saturday night, the solar storm in Austria and neighboring countries Germany (see video above) and Switzerland provided a colorful night sky until well after midnight. “Most observers in this country have never seen such spectacular northern lights,” stressed the chairman of the Martinsberg Astronomical Center in the Waldviertel, Michael Jäger, to the APA. “In addition to the red aurora streaks that are mainly visible at our latitudes, the green aurora phenomena that are rarely observed could also be observed.”
The area where the solar storms form – a huge sunspot cluster – is about 16 times the diameter of our Earth, the US Meteorological and Oceanographic Administration (NOAA) reports. Category five, classified as ‘extreme’, was last reached in October 2003 during the so-called Halloween storms. At that time there were power outages in Sweden and transformers were damaged in South Africa.
Source: Krone
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