Can the Northern Lights be seen from Provo, Utah?

Back in November of 1991 (November 8, to be precise), I was living in Provo, Utah, which has a latitude of 40.2 degrees north. At about 9:00 P.M. I looked outside and noticed that the entire western portion of the sky was a bright red. It was so unusual that I took a picture of it:

At the time, I assumed it was a rare display of the Aurora Borealis – something I had never seen before and haven’t seen since. In the years since that time, however, every time I tell somebody that I saw the Northern Lights in Provo, Utah, they tell me that the lights can’t be seen that far south.

So, what say the Teeming Millions? Can the Northern Lights be seen that far south? And, if not, is there some other explanation for what I saw that evening?

Any chance that somebody else saw what I saw that evening?

Regards,

Barry

Almost certainly thats what it was. On rare occurences, they can go even further south than that. I’ve heard reports of them being visible in Florida (!!!) before.

Common, no. Possible? Yep.

I saw them from outside Park City in August of 2000. About the Provo red sky, I gotta ask: were they dumping Slag at Geneva that night? I was living in Okanagan county, Washington at that time, so I didn’t see the same sky you saw.

Sure it was November 8? It seems as though there were some significant auroras on November 5-6, 2001. This gallery of photos has entries from as far south as Texas and Arkansas.

http://www.spaceweather.com/aurora/gallery_06nov01_page3.html

Thanks for that link, Finagle! This picture, taken in Arizona, matches what I saw almost exactly:

As for the exact date, all I know is what I wrote down at the time. It’s certainly possible I wrote down the wrong day, I suppose.

Barry

Yes, there was a very brilliant display on 11/05/01, I remember it clearly, because it was one of the rare red auroras. It was directly overhead here in southcentral Alaska, so I am sure it was visible in much of the lower 48.

Actually, I just noticed that those pictures refer to November 5-6, 2001. My experience was in November of 1991.

Barry

We saw the red auroras here in Nashville a while ago - probably the 11/2001 occurence. It was freaky. I kept telling everyone that I thought it was the northern lights, but no one believed me until it was in the paper the next day.

Oops, off by a decade. Although at least we’ve demonstrated that auroras can be seen that far south.

Solar activity does follow a roughly 11 year cycle and we’re maybe a year out of the last peak, so 1991 sounds about right.

Googling “aurora november 1991” turned up many pages about a major display on the 8th, including this one from Kansas City, Kansas: http://www.icstars.com/HTML/SolarSection/Aurora/PowellAurora.html

Ahhhh, sweet Google. Is there nothing it can’t solve?

:wink:

Barry

Yes, I did see the red sky in provo that night as well. I was looking for some kind of comment about it and found this site. I came across something called a super solar storm that described such an event in 1859. Although this event we are talking about would not have been a super solar storm of that magnatude, it would make sense that some solar flares might have been responsible. At any rate, it was awsome! The eastern sky was absolutely blood/burgundy in color, and the north/western was lighter. I was never able to find any information on it. Very interesting for such a strange event.

Penelope

While it’s true that this is a zombie thread, I wanted to note that there are records of the Northern Lights being visible as far south as Mexico City. Under extreme conditions, the Aurorae are visible practically anywhere.

zombie or no

agree that they have extended that far south as a maybe once in a couple lifetime event.

though 9PM is very early to see them.

Once, when I was in my early teens (so sometime in the '90s), the local news in San Diego advertised that it would be faintly visible there that evening. I didn’t get a chance to see, though, because I had school the next day.

I’m not sure about that. In April, there was a prediction of Northern Lights as far south as possibly Iowa, and the expected visibility time was 8 PM EDT.

I don’t know whatever happened to that, as I didn’t hear a follow-up story, so I don’t know if they were visible in the US or not.

FYI, the sun has just put out a sizable solar flare, so if you have access to a dark sky, keep an eye on the northern night sky for the next couple of nights. You might get lucky!