Sky watchers have a “90% chance” of spotting the Northern Lights across the UK tonight, as the Met Office revealed the areas where Brits may be able to see the spectacle.
Last night lucky people in Scotland were able to spot the lights over parts of Scotland. And tonight millions of folks may be lucky enough to see them from their own homes in some parts of the north of England too.
The Met Office has shared a map showing where has the best chance, stretching from Scotland down to the north of England and on to the Midlands – unless clouds get in the way. For those not covered by clouds, people may have a 90% chance of seeing the view.
The Met Office said: “Northern regions have further chances to see the aurora over the next few nights. Cloudy skies mean limited view opportunities for most of us, but with clearer skies in northern and western Scotland, there’s a much better chance here.”
The Met Office has said that any “glancing coronal mass ejections” – or CMEs – may bring a “chance of visible aurora. (CMEs) are large expulsions of plasma and magnetic field from the sun’s atmosphere. Aurora displays only occur when charged particles collide with gases in the Earth’s atmosphere around the magnetic poles. As they collide, light is emitted at various wavelengths, creating colourful displays in the sky.
The Northern Lights were last visible across most of the UK in November 2024, people were lucky enough to see a spectacular display of pink and green rays as the aurora borealis filled the skies. Social media at the time was filled with people sharing images and videos of the amazing light show which was seen much further south that it had been seen before.
The Northern Lights are usually seen over Iceland, Alaska, Canada, Norway and Finland. The Met Office also says that in the southern hemisphere the periods of enhanced aurora will be seen over parts of New Zealand’s south island tonight. It said “periods of enhanced aurora are possible due to ongoing fast solar winds and any glancing coronal mass ejections bringing a chance of visible aurora over southern parts of New Zealand’s south island and other similar geomagnetic latitudes under clear skies”.
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