Northern lights finally make anticipated beautiful display over Maine

By Adam Bartow & Emily Pike

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    MAINE (WMTW) — After days of anticipation, the northern lights, or aurora borealis, put on a show over parts of Maine Monday night and Tuesday morning.

NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center forecast a G4-level geomagnetic storm for Sunday and Monday night, which meant there was a strong chance to see the aurora borealis with the naked eye. While the lights didn’t materialize that night, they showed up the next night when there was another G4 storm, and with mostly clear skies across the state. By Tuesday, the storm will weaken to G3 levels.

Gina Fraticelli shared a picture of the lights from Limerick Tuesday morning.

The Fairfield Police Department shared a picture taken at about 2 a.m. Tuesday by an officer looking north from Center Road.

The National Weather Service in Caribou also enjoyed a beautiful display thanks to “pulsating waves of energy in the lights oriented from N to S within the curtain.”

The moon set at 12:59 a.m., allowing for a much more pronounced northern lights.

Your camera can see better colors from aurora borealis than your eyes alone. When taking a picture of the northern lights, use a long exposure on your camera – 10 to 25 seconds if you can.

The summit of Mount Washington also enjoyed a beautiful display Tuesday morning. Wind chills at the observatory were nearing 20 degrees, but staff bundled up to enjoy the display just after midnight.

Forecasting the northern lights, or aurora borealis, is tricky because it depends on space weather, which is far more unpredictable than regular weather here on Earth.

The aurora happens when charged particles from the sun, carried by solar winds, interact with Earth’s magnetic field. But those particles take time to travel millions of miles from the sun to Earth. This can be anywhere from one to three days. Along the way, the energy can change. This means even when we detect a solar flare or coronal mass ejection (CME) on the sun, we can’t be totally sure how strong it will be or exactly where it will hit Earth’s magnetic field.

Once the particles arrive, the strength and location of the aurora depend on many factors, like the speed and direction of the solar wind, the structure of the magnetic fields involved, and how Earth’s own magnetic field is behaving at that moment. These conditions can shift quickly, making it hard to predict exactly when or where the aurora will appear, sometimes even just hours ahead.

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