Strongest Solar Storm in 20 Years Lights Up Swiss Night Sky with Northern Lights

The strongest solar storm in more than 20 years has seen northern lights in the Swiss night sky. For once, the colorful scene was visible to the naked eye even from the plains.

The solar storm that caused the Northern Lights on Saturday night was, according to the US weather agency NOAA, the strongest geomagnetic storm since 2003.

People published and shared several photos on social networks. In some places it glowed magenta, in other places there were violet-blue-green colored spectacles and in some places the sky turned purple as well. Meteoschweiz captured the natural scene on a weather camera in Ravoire near Martigny VS. The Winterthur Eschenberg Observatory also saw the natural scene, as the Zurich institute announced.

Northern lights were also seen on Sunday night. However, they were much weaker than the night before, as the weather service Meteonews announced on Sunday morning. The northern lights were mostly visible from the mountains. Thus, the colorful phenomenon was visible in the eastern part of Switzerland from Pizol and Säntis.

Very rare in Alpine areas

In principle, northern lights are rare in the Alpine region. On Saturday night, the lights were visible from the fields as well. The natural phenomenon is caused by solar storms that hit the Earth’s magnetic field. The stronger the solar winds, the further south the Northern Lights can be seen. It has been said that the better it is visible and the darker the place you are in, the greater the chance you will get a glimpse of the northern lights.

The rare sighting is caused by solar storms, known as coronal mass ejections (CME), which hit the Earth’s magnetic field. According to Meteoschweiz, the northern lights are caused by interactions between confined particles from space and the earth’s atmosphere. The solar wind is made up of charged particles, mainly electrons and protons, ejected from the Sun.

As soon as the charged particles reach the atmosphere, they collide with the gases in the atmosphere. Energy and light are released during the collisions. The color of the northern lights depends on the type of gas particles with which the confined particles in the atmosphere interact and the altitude at which these interactions occur. The stronger the solar winds, the further south the Northern Lights can be seen.

Damage from “Halloween Storms”

According to the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, the strength of such a storm is given in three categories of five levels, of which category G describes the geomagnetic effects that triggered the plasma cloud. Category S, on the other hand, means radiation effects caused by high-energy particles and category R means radio interference caused by the X-ray flash.

Regarding the current solar storm, the US weather agency NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) announced on Saturday night that they had observed a “G5 situation”. This peak was last recorded during the so-called “Halloween Storms” in October 2003, which led to power outages in Sweden and damage to transformers in South Africa.

NOAA had previously warned operators of critical infrastructure in the United States, including satellites and power grids as well as airlines, to take protective measures against such disruptions.

According to NOAA experts, the original region of solar storms is a large, complex solar cluster that is about 17 times the diameter of Earth.

In case you missed it, here are the best photos from last night:

Dietlikon – more beautiful than ever.Image: zvg

Hüntwangen im Tromsø-See.Image: zvg

Gstaad in a purple dress.Image: zvg/Ivan Gutzwiller

View from Aarauer Telli.Image: zvg

Northern lights from Pizol.Photo: foto-webcam.eu