Lights, camera, aurora!
New Yorker’s were left awestruck Thursday night when the night sky was illuminated by a breathtaking aurora borealis display over the Big Apple.
“It has been a LONG time since we’ve seen visible aurora over NYC,” X account New York Metro Weather wrote in a post that included a photo of the vibrant shades of purple and pink visible high above the bustling city streets.
“And it will likely be a long time until we see it again. Go outside and look up!”
Many New Yorkers did in fact go outside and look up – and they weren’t the only ones, as the northern lights show was visible over a much larger swath of the globe than experts initially expected.
The aurora borealis was witnessed as far south as Washington DC, and across the pond in the United Kingdom.
“Wow, absolutely speechless!” New York City-based meteorologist Allan Nossoff wrote in all caps on X. “These aurora visible with the naked eye #NYC!”
Another city dweller who couldn’t contain their excitement simply wrote: “AHHHHH.”
One X user in New Jersey posted photos of the overwhelming vision from their backyard and asked: “why is the aurora literally in my backyard?”
Another X user showed a panoramic view from Fair Haven, NY, on the banks of Lake Oswego.
Even in Lewes, Delaware, the striking scene made for a shot worth posting for one X user.
England’s Met Office shared photos that meteorologists there took from various locations around the isle.
Folks as far as the French Alps were blessed with the once-in-a-lifetime sight.
The cause for Mother Nature’s special effects is a coronal mass ejection (CME) which erupted from the Sun earlier in the day.
That outburst triggered geomagnetic storms, which produced the trippy effects on the night sky here on Earth. The severity of the CME dictates how visible the aurora will be.
Meteorologists did not expect Thursday’s storm to be as powerful as it turned out.
and the Atlantic Coast from their visibility forecast. NOAA
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said earlier Thursday that expectations were for the aurora to only be somewhat visible from upstate New York – but that people in the city would miss out on the prime sky-peeping.
The CME was apparently strong enough to provide the other-worldly display to cover a large swath of the Atlantic coast.
Experts say that the expanded aurora may be visible in parts of the world for as many as a couple days – but that by Friday night the lights should be out in New York City.