{"id":258824,"date":"2025-11-12T16:49:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T16:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/258824\/"},"modified":"2025-11-12T16:49:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T16:49:08","slug":"northern-lights-visible-across-us-as-geomagnetic-storm-lights-up-skies-us-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/258824\/","title":{"rendered":"Northern lights visible across US as geomagnetic storm lights up skies | US news"},"content":{"rendered":"

A powerful geomagnetic storm<\/a> lit up skies across much of the US late Tuesday and early Wednesday, giving people in dozens of states a rare chance to see the northern lights, and forecasters say that more auroral activity could be<\/a> visible on Wednesday night too.<\/p>\n

The aurora borealis, commonly known as the northern lights, was reported in more than a dozen states, stretching from New York<\/a> to Washington state<\/a> to Texas<\/a>, Oklahoma<\/a> and Tennessee<\/a>. Photos of the glowing colorful skies also poured in on social media from Nevada<\/a>, Massachusetts<\/a>, Georgia<\/a>, Alabama<\/a>, Montana<\/a>, Alaska<\/a>, Wyoming<\/a>, California<\/a>, Louisiana<\/a>, New Mexico<\/a>, Florida<\/a>, South Carolina<\/a>, North Carolina<\/a>, Nebraska<\/a>, Iowa<\/a>, Idaho<\/a>, South Dakota<\/a> and more.<\/p>\n

Aurora borealis occurs when charged solar particles from the sun collide and interact with gases in the Earth\u2019s<\/a> upper atmosphere.<\/p>\n

A colorful display of northern lights north of . 2025. Photograph: Joe Marino\/UPI\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration\u2019s (Noaa) Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) issued a severe G4 geomagnetic storm <\/a>watch for 11 and 12 November, the second highest rating on its scale<\/a>, after<\/a> fast-moving coronal mass ejections<\/a> (CME) were hurled out by the sun.<\/p>\n

In a video post on<\/a> late on Tuesday night, Shawn Dahl, a forecaster at the SWPC in Boulder, Colorado, said that \u201ca lot of geomagnetic storm activity\u201d was occurring, and said that two or three anticipated CMEs had already reached Earth and \u201cpacked quite a punch\u201d and \u201calready reached G4 severe level conditions\u201d.<\/p>\n

Dahl said that the two CME\u2019s were \u201cprofoundly stronger than we anticipated\u201d.<\/p>\n

The aurora borealis glows above along Maple Grove Road in rural Monroe county, Indiana. Photograph: Jeremy Hogan<\/p>\n

He said that forecasters do not believe that the third CME has arrived yet, and said that they are anticipating the arrival of a third CME sometime around midday ET on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

In a video update on Wednesday morning,<\/a>Dahl said that the two CMEs that already reached Earth had a magnetic strength \u201ceight times stronger than what\u2019s normal\u201d and said that the conditions are \u201cfavorable at the moment for continued activity.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a release on <\/a>Wednesday, NOAA forecasters said that they expect the third CME, which is still expected to arrive around Noon ET, to be the \u201cfinal and most energetic\u201d of the three.<\/p>\n

A person photographs the northern lights as fog rolls into San Francisco Bay in San Rafael, California. Photograph: San Francisco Chronicle\/Hearst Newspapers\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Meteorologist Marc Chenard, of the Weather Prediction Center, told the New York Times<\/a> that the northern lights could return again Wednesday night around the country, though clouds may block views for those in parts of the West Coast and Northeast.<\/p>\n

As of 9am ET Wednesday, SWPC said<\/a> that G3 conditions are currently being observed and that \u201cG4 conditions with a chance for higher levels remain possible throughout the day as another CME is expected to arrive midday (EST).\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A powerful geomagnetic storm lit up skies across much of the US late Tuesday and early Wednesday, giving…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":258825,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[90,416,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-258824","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-space","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258824\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/258825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}