Will We See the Northern Lights from North America Tonight?

Tonight in North America, we might be treated to rare glimpse of a colorful sky caused by a solar flare that occurred on Thursday morning. Aurora borealis (called aurora australis in the southern hemisphere) is a result of solar flares that cause radiation from the sun to interact with atmospheric protons–that’s when colorful beams of light start to dance across the night sky.  The most common colors of “Northern Lights” are green and blue, but on occasion, they turn orange, pink, yellow and red.

This map from AccuWeather.com portrays viewing conditions in North America:

Visibility map of the Northern Light show in North America, Saturday, April 13th. (Map courtesy of AccuWeather.com)

And in Europe:

Visibility map of the Northern Light show in Europe, Saturday, April 13th. (Map courtesy of AccuWeather.com)

We’ll be watching and posting photos tomorrow if any worth sharing are captured.  In the meantime, some inspiration from a photo taken on Lake Vakkara in northern Sweden last month by @stefaliscious (who apparently brought the aurora’s home with her):

The vivid appearance of the Northern Lights in this photo comes from a delayed shutter speed of 10 seconds — a more honorable trick than manipulating color with Photoshop! 🙂 (Lake Vakkara, Northern Sweden, by @stefaliscious)

..