Dazzling, pink-blueish colours were seen in the sky of the US on Tuesday night, November 11. These phenomena, commonly known as northern lights or aurora borealis, created spectacular displays in Florida, New Mexico, Texas and several other northern US states. Normally, northern lights occur when solar winds collide with Earth's atmospheric pressure, which produces mixed colours light in the night sky, including green, pink, red, and purple.
The Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) had issued a geomagnetic storm warning. As a category G4 storm on the G5 scale on Tuesday, one of the highest intensity levels predicting a storm to slam eleven US states, including Oregon, Idaho, Montana, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.
The G4 category geomagnetic storm caused issues with electrical grids for states poleward of the 45th parallel. A solar system activity also disrupts electrical and communications infrastructure. Government officials have responded to outages.
According to the Forecast, Several coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are expected to reach Earth’s magnetic field over the next two nights (November 11 and 12) and trigger the main phase of the storm.
“The intensity of the CME will not be known with better certainty until it arrives 1 million miles from Earth and is observed by the solar wind observatories at that location,” NWSSPWC said. “It is at that point that any needed Warning decisions can be made by SWPC forecasters.”