Jamey Ross
Audio By Carbonatix
The Northern Lights made a surprise appearance over Colorado on November 11, then returned on November 12. After lighting up skies and social media feeds two nights in a row, Denver residents are once again asking: Will the lights return tonight?
The aurora borealis is a rare occurrence in Colorado; although it has been showing up sporadically in the northern part of the state in recent years, it almost never makes it all the way to Denver. According to people lucky enough to catch the colorful skies on Tuesday, it was one of the most colorful displays to ever grace Colorado.
“Best Colorado northern lights show in the 15+ years I’ve lived here. Zero doubt. Incredible!” wrote 9News meteorologist (and former Westword contributor) Chris Bianchi.
According to Bianchi, the aurora borealis displays on Tuesday came from two different coronal mass ejections, or solar storms from the sun, creating a category-four geomagnetic storm. When those ejections bounce off each other when the sky is dark, we get the Northern Lights…if you were lucky enough to be looking at your phone when they arrived, at least. The night skies remained colorful across Colorado into early Wednesday, but for most of Denver, the Northern Lights show only lasted a couple of hours, leaving those who missed it yearning for more — and some of those wishes were granted.
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Wednesday’s display was a little more subdued and just missed the Denver metro, but those who caught it were still impressed. And there’s a small chance that aurora borealis returns to Colorado tonight.
According to initial information from the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, another clash of coronal mass ejections will likely take place today, November 13, with a peak from around 3 p.m. to midnight. The time of the solar storm display, cloud coverage and viewline all must work together for you to be able to see it, however. And as it stands, the current aurora viewline is still north of Nebraska, according to NOAA.
A reason for optimism: Most of Colorado was south of the viewline yesterday, too, and some of the state still experienced a solid Northern Lights show. So there’s still a chance it returns…just a smaller one.
If anything major changes in the forecast, we’ll let you know. In the meantime, you can follow the action closely with NOAA’s Aurora Viewline trackers, which are updated throughout the day.
