Spectacular aurora from severe solar storm light up northern skies

The St. Patrick’s Day geomagnetic storm, the most intense since fall of 2013, spurred dazzling aurora before and after sunset, and then finally faded.

On Tuesday evening, forecasts indicated a slight chance aurora would be viewable as far south as the Mid-Atlantic, but the farthest south we’ve seen reports were in Illinois, Ohio and northern New Jersey – which is nonetheless quite unusual.

Pictures from the Washington Post article.

Cloud camera YouTube video from Hankasalmi Observatory, compliments of Arto Okasanen.

Image above taken by Marketa Murray on March 17, 2015 @ Dalton HWY , Alaska