When The Lights Go On Again

[Rell Jette]

Thenorthern lights dazzled Americans again Saturday night with flashes of green, purple, and pink lighting up the night sky in much of the northern United States, though the display didn't appear as brilliant or reach as far south as on Friday.

But the chance to view intense auroras for another night dwindled after the Space Weather Prediction Center downgraded its forecast to G 3 (Strong) Warning on Sunday evening. The center initially predicted that storm activity could reach G 4 (Severe).

"Conditions are currently forecast to gradually wane later Monday into early Tuesday," the center said on X. "During periods of stronger geomagnetic storm conditions, aurora will potentially be viewable at the middle (and higher) latitudes."

The center's experimental forecast map shows the aurora may be visible Sunday in New England, the Midwest, the Upper Plains, and the Pacific Northwest regions. The streaks of light may be seen as far South as Iowa and Nebraska.

If you missed the view on Friday or Saturday due to cloud cover, you might be in luck Sunday, AccuWeather senior meteorologist Tom Kines told USA TODAY. The Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions, blanketed by clouds for most of the last two nights, should have a much clearer view of any aurora activity, but clouds may block it if you live in the center of the country.

The best aurora viewing is typically within an hour or two of midnight, local time, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the parent agency of the Space Weather Prediction Center.

NASA describes an aurora as an "intricate dance of particles and magnetism between the Sun and the Earth." The reason the auroras move is because of how the Sun's ionized gases interact with the Earth's magnetic field.

Just like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration uses a scale to measure the strength of hurricanes and tornadoes, it also uses a scale to rate the strength of geomagnetic storms, when coronal mass ejections from the sun reach the outer layers of the earth's atmosphere.

A G 5 (extreme) rating represents the greatest chances of seeing auroras over the greatest expanse of the Earth. That's what happened on Friday night, when people saw the aurora in the Florida Keys and Mexico. The hours of potential viewing expand toward evening and morning as the level of geomagnetic activity increases.

The best time to view the aurora is generally within one to two hours of midnight, but these hours stretch earlier into evening and later into morning with increased levels of geomagnetic activity, the Space Weather Prediction Center said.

To get the best view, it must be dark, experts say. You won't see aurora in daylight. You should also try to get away from the light pollution of a big city, Kines said. The darker it is, the better the view, though some people reported seeing bright aurora activity from metro areas like Milwaukee and Detroit on Friday.

Why? Because the Northern Lights, or Aurora Borealis, made a surprise trip down to the continental United States, lighting up skies as far south as Joshua Tree and giving Californians a rare look at a celestial show that usually requires getting on a plane.

Those that missed it (or those who caught it and loved it) may wonder if this was this a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, or if it could happen here again. To find out, we asked three experts at the UC Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory, Chris Chaston, Harald Frey and Yan Li. Chaston and Frey are research physicists and Li is an associate research physicist at the lab.

HF: You have to consider the aspect of surprise. You likely look up into the sky hundreds of times and nothing is happening, except for the occasional meteor. But when suddenly the whole sky lights up, changes color, and forms change and dance around, you are admiring what nature is capable of doing.

CC: I missed it on Friday night but I did try after sunset on Saturday from a high point in the Bay area. It was perhaps just a faint glow above the horizon to the North. I read of people driving up to Shasta on Friday who saw a good show late in the evening.

HF: The impact of such geomagnetic storms on the ground is generally rather limited, but similar events in the past have caused damage to electric power lines and transformers. More worrisome is the potential damage to satellites in orbit around the Earth. The energetic electrons can damage the electronic components of satellites and make them unusable. One way to limit damage to satellites is to turn them off temporarily, which was actually done with the three THEMIS satellites around Earth that are managed by our UC Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory. Many other satellite operators must have taken similar precautions.

Yan Li (YL): Solar flares and CMEs as energetic solar activity are more frequent during the maximum of the solar cycle. These violent solar activity produce intense solar energetic electrons and ions. The Sun is on the rising phase of the solar cycle and approaching its activity maximum

soon. Therefore, it is reasonable to expect more frequent aurora sightings in the next few years.

CC: The color of light that is seen is dependent on the atmospheric composition and the energy and type of colliding particle that stimulates the light emitted. The classic green aurora is due to energized electrons colliding with atomic oxygen and is the most common auroral emission reported. At lower latitudes, such as here in California, the downward streaming electrons which stimulate the light seen from the ground have a different distribution in energy than those observed at high latitudes and the aurora is only observed from the side looking northward, rather than from below. These factors lead to us observing different colors and mixtures of colors.

CC: Certainly, the aurora is observed by the naked eye. Cameras with long exposure times and sensitive light sensors (CCD and CMOS) can capture faint aurora but the best way to view the Northern Lights for the amateur observer is with the naked eye.

HF: The human eye is most sensitive to green light, less to red, and even less to blue. The optical detectors of iPhones try to mimic the human eye sensitivity as best as possible but they are still more sensitive to red. Therefore a mix of blue/green/red will appear slightly different to the naked eye and on a picture taken by the phone.

CC: You might be waiting a long time to see it here again in California and even then, you will likely not see it at its best. If you want to see the aurora in all its glory, I would suggest booking into a hotel near Fairbanks, Alaska for a couple of weeks during mid-winter.

HF: Other good places are northern Norway, Sweden, and Finland and central Canada. You need a clear sky and as little moonlight as possible. There is aurora over Iceland, but this region is known for many cloudy days and coastal fog. The weather is more stable in inland regions, like Fairbanks, Alaska.

CC: You can also see aurora in the Southern Hemisphere. This past weekend I heard it was good from Hobart, Tasmania, and was supposed to be visible all the way up to Coffs Harbour in New South Wales, Australia, although I have not searched for images.

Harald Frey received his education in Germany and joined the Space Sciences Laboratory at UC Berkeley in 1997. He has been working on the detection and analysis of optical phenomena in near-Earth space using cameras on satellites and on the ground. He was the instrument scientist for the Far Ultraviolet Imager on the NASA IMAGE mission that observed aurora, the U.S. project scientist for the Imager for Sprites and Upper Atmospheric Lightning (ISUAL), and instrument scientist for the Far Ultraviolet Imager on the NASA Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON). He is now retired.

Yan Li has been a research physicist at the UC Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory since 1999 and is an expert on solar coronal mass ejections that trigger aurora events. Before arriving at UC Berkeley more than 20 years ago, her work carried her from the Institute of Space Physics at the Space Academy in Beijing, China, the University of Sydney in Australia and Kyushu University in Japan.

The University of California opened its doors in 1869 with just 10 faculty members and 40 students. Today, the UC system has more than 280,000 students and 227,000 faculty and staff, with 2.0 million alumni living and working around the world.

"When the Lights Go On Again (All Over the World)" is a popular song composed during World War II. It was written by Bennie Benjamin, Sol Marcus and Eddie Seiler.[1] The first recording, by Vaughn Monroe, reached number one on the charts in 1943.[2]

When the lights go on again all over the world

And the boys are home again all over the world

And rain or snow is all that may fall from the skies above

A kiss won't mean "Goodbye" but "Hello to love"[3]

The reference to "lights going on again" alludes to the remark "The lamps are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our life-time", attributed to British statesman Sir Edward Grey on the eve of the First World War.[4] The title of the song may also refer to the longed-for end to the blackout restrictions imposed in London and elsewhere during the Second World War.

When the lights go on again all over the world

And the boys are home again all over the world

And rain or snow is all that may fall from the skies above

A kiss won't mean "goodbye" but "hello to love"

When the lights go on again all over the world

And the ships will sail again all over the world

Then we'll have time for things like wedding rings and free hearts will sing

When the lights go on again all over the world

This song was included on the 2002 pro-America compilation album Flag Waver as part its collection of patriotic anthems, [12]and was also included on the 2005 box set collection Songs That Won the War: Celebrating the 60th Anniversary of VE Day[13]

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