City dwellers thrilled by magnificent aurora borealis display over the Big Apple: ‘Absolutely speechless!’
By Shane Galvin,
1 days ago
Lights, camera, aurora!
New Yorker’s were left awestruck Thursday night when the night sky was illuminated by a breathtaking aurora borealis display over the Big Apple.
“It has been a LONG time since we’ve seen visible aurora over NYC,” X account New York Metro Weather wrote in a post that included a photo of the vibrant shades of purple and pink visible high above the bustling city streets.
“And it will likely be a long time until we see it again. Go outside and look up!”
Many New Yorkers did in fact go outside and look up – and they weren’t the only ones, as the northern lights show was visible over a much larger swath of the globe than experts initially expected.
The cause for Mother Nature’s special effects is a coronal mass ejection (CME) which erupted from the Sun earlier in the day.
That outburst triggered geomagnetic storms, which produced the trippy effects on the night sky here on Earth. The severity of the CME dictates how visible the aurora will be.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said earlier Thursday that expectations were for the aurora to only be somewhat visible from upstate New York – but that people in the city would miss out on the prime sky-peeping.
The CME was apparently strong enough to provide the other-worldly display to cover a large swath of the Atlantic coast.
Experts say that the expanded aurora may be visible in parts of the world for as many as a couple days – but that by Friday night the lights should be out in New York City.
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