Northern Lights shine bright across much of the UK

2 weeks ago 27

Simon KingLead weather presenter

BBC Weather Watchers/Saf37y A picture of the night sky across a big empty expanse. The sky is lit up bright green and pink in waves, showing the aurora, in front of a sparkling night sky filled with stars

The Northern Lights were spotted across the UK for the first time this autumn on Monday night.

From northern Scotland, north Wales to Norfolk and Kent, the bright colours of the aurora were visible after a strong solar storm.

Space weather forecasters highlighted the chance of aurora on Monday afternoon after satellites monitoring solar activity picked up an eruption on the surface of the Sun – known as a coronal mass ejection.

The increased solar energy travelled into our atmosphere where it interacted with oxygen and nitrogen and created the purples, greens and red colours we know as the aurora.

BBC Weather Watchers/Paul Appleby A view across a rocky beach as the tide is out, revealing old tall wooden beams sticking up. In the distance is a white light house which is clearly visible. The sea is far out. The night sky is lit up in green and pink, with lots of stars, as the northern lights are clearly visible.

BBC Weather Watchers/Rossi A bench sits in front of the sea in the dark. It is illuminated by a bright green and pink sky, which is dotted with dark clouds. The water reflects from the green lights

While it is not uncommon to see the aurora across northern areas of the UK, it takes a stronger solar storm for them to be visible further south.

The US Space Weather Prediction Center confirmed there was a "moderate geomagnetic storm" reaching G2 in a scale from G1-G5. They predict we could see a stronger storm up to G3 on Tuesday.

However, the Met Office Space Weather Centre suggests we could see a G4 severe storm arriving on Tuesday night into Wednesday morning.

This would bring a greater chance for seeing the aurora right across the UK, potentially even with the naked eye.

By Wednesday, activity is likely to fall back to normal levels.

BBC Weather Watchers/KeeponRunning A bright purple sky lighting up an empty field, with two large trees in the foreground and a wooded area in the distance. Stars fill the sky which is darker purple at the top to lighter at the bottom

BBC Weather Watchers/UkWeatherView Above the roof of a house, which is a dark silhouette, the sky is bright purple into dark blue with lots of very bright stars

The Northern Lights are caused by solar winds carrying charged particles interacting with the earth's magnetic field.

The heightened chance of a UK sighting was caused by a fast-moving coronal mass ejection, which is a "release of plasma and magnetic field from the Sun's corona", late on Saturday night.

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