Aurora borealis streaks through night sky across Washington state
Oct 12, 2021, 6:50 AM | Updated: 10:22 am
(WSDOT East, Twitter)
The aurora borealis made a brief appearance in night skies across Washington state on Monday night, thanks to a solar flare that emanated off the sun over the weekend.
Aurora borealis makes appearance in Seattle night sky
The flare was said to have started its move toward Earth on Saturday, arriving sometime around Monday afternoon. While the negative impacts of such a flare on the planet were minimal, eagle-eyed viewers — particularly those with high-quality time-lapse cameras — may have seen an aurora borealis from the resulting solar storm everywhere from the Puget Sound region to Spokane.
The nighttime aerial light show kicked in around 8 p.m., making itself most visible to those furthest away from city centers. Sightings in Western Washington were reported near the U.S./Canada border just north of Lynden, Washington, moving as far south as Marysville.
In Eastern Washington, the aurora made an appearance near northern Spokane, with a green light streaking through the night sky around 11 p.m.
It’s a cold evening but we’ll worth the drive to a dark area for the lights show happening. If you plan to see the #NorthernLights please drive carefully this evening. pic.twitter.com/EffYbgbWqF
— WSDOT East (@WSDOT_East) October 12, 2021
You can watch a time lapse of the experience courtesy of Skunk Bay Weather here.