A meteorologist discovered webcam footage of the northern lights, also known as the aurora borealis, in southern Nevada early Friday morning.
Matthew Woods, who works at the National Weather Service office in Las Vegas, made sure to check the webcam to see because the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center had predicted a strong geomagnetic storm, SFGate reported.
“I was ready to go out and take some pictures myself, but it was too late and I was like, ‘I have to go to work in the morning,'” she told the outlet. “I don’t think you would see that if you were standing in Vegas. I think there is too much light pollution.”
He saw the aurora borealis, which appears as a beam of light in the sky, in a video captured by a Bureau of Land Management camera at Angel Peak, a recreation area in San Juan County, New Mexico, located at an elevation of nearly 9,000 feet.
The spectacular natural light show occurs when particles from the sun hit Earth’s upper atmosphere at speeds of up to 45 million miles per hour, according to Space.com. The geomagnetic storm that occurred on Friday was a level 3 out of 5 on the NOAA scale.
“Most likely the aurora, but keep in mind you couldn’t ask for better conditions,” Bryan Brasher, project manager at the Space Weather Prediction Center, told SFGate.
“You’re at the top of a big mountain,” Brasher explained. “The higher you are, the further north you can see. You have ideal viewing conditions, combined with the fact that we have conditions in the forecast that [the aurora] can go further south than usual.”
The northern lights phenomenon usually occurs in latitudes far north, over locations such as Greenland and Iceland. But during strong storms, like the one on Friday, it could appear further south.
“Auroras are very complex and it’s not unusual for auroras to appear further south than predicted,” Brasher said.
“It’s a very complex phenomenon based on countless variables,” he added. “Things beyond our predictions are possible.”
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
