SCIENCE

Severe Solar Storm Paints the Sky Green on St. Patrick’s Day

A burst of particles from the sun is hitting our atmosphere and lighting up the night as far south as Illinois

Victoria Jaggard

March 17, 2015

"The skies exploded in colour this morning around Saskatoon," writes the photographer, who captured the scene from Saskatchewan, Canada with a fisheye lens. Colin Chatfield, via Spaceweather.com

The March 17 auroras took on warmer tones seen from West Church, four miles east of Chester, South Dakota. Christian Begeman, via Spaceweather.com

This photo was taken from the frozen ice of Boulder Lake, about 25 miles north of Duluth, Minnesota. Rich Hoeg

A short burst of red decorated the morning sky over Washington, Illinois. Kevin Palmer, via Spaceweather.com

"The show was another spectacular one! Reds and greens and yellows! The sky has just been on fire!" the photographer enthuses on Spaceweather.com. Zoltan Kenwell, via Spaceweather.com

"Insane Auroras, never saw anything like this," writes the photographer after witnessing the early morning auroras from Dalton Highway in Alaska. Marketa Murray, via Spaceweather.com

Vibrant pinks layer on top of rich greens in a view of the auroral display seen from New Zealand. Liz Carlson

Green ribbons seem to make tracks across the red sky in another view of the southern auroras seen over New Zealand. Liz Carlson

Green beer and emerald rivers? Pah. How about a vibrant light show of green and red auroras dancing across the night sky. Earth is currently experiencing a "severe" solar storm, probably due to clouds of charged particles that came racing off the sun on March 15. When high-speed particles from such coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, hit our atmosphere, they excite molecules of gas in the air and trigger brilliant displays of lights, most commonly around the Poles.

Data from NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center shows that the current storm around the North Pole started off weak in the early hours of March 17, but then it quickly ramped up to a G4-class geomagnetic event (G5 is the most intense). This sparked northern lights that could be seen much farther south than normal—painting some skies with vivid greens, reds and purples in the wee hours of St. Patrick's Day. The exact colors seen depend on which types of gases are emitting light and how high they are in the atmosphere.

"The glow was visible to the eye even on the edge of town and even more amazing out in the country," Christian Begeman, who shot the aurora from South Dakota, told Spaceweather.com. NOAA forecasters say that the storm should remain strong for several hours and then taper off. But nighttime revelers at northern latitudes may get another good view of the St. Patrick's Day auroras, as the forecast calls for the storm to be at G1 levels through the evening and into the early morning of March 18, according to Universe Today.

Update, 9:53 p.m. ET: The Southern Hemisphere also got a dose of intense auroral activity from this storm, with splashes of color lighting up the skies over Antarctica and New Zealand. "The colors were insane," travel writer Liz Carlson tells me via Twitter. "In the Southern Hemisphere we get the reds and pinks but to have purple and green too was awesome!"