The northern lights shimmer in skies over Kamloops.
Image Credit: SUBMITTED/ Mitchell Mogge
October 12, 2024 - 6:00 AM
Vibrant northern lights lit up skies over Kamloops and the Okanagan twice this week, and area photographers captured the brilliant phenomenon.
The most recent aurora borealis display, Oct. 10, occurred when a coronal mass ejection from the sun reached Earth triggering severe geomagnetic storm activity.
The ejection arrived travelling almost 1.5 million miles per hour and is one of two ejections anticipated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA. Coronal mass ejections are large expulsions of plasma and magnetic field from the sun’s corona that can are sometimes aimed at Earth and take days to arrive.
The solar activity prompted NOAA to issue a severe geomagnetic storm warning, and sparked a sky full of shimmering aurora that was captured by photographers in the Thompson-Okanagan region.
Typically, the light displays are reserved for northern locations closer to the north pole, but this year the sun is nearing its maximum solar flare activity in an 11-year cycle and residents further south are being treated to the displays.
Aurora borealis shimmers over Okanagan Lake near Summerland.
Image Credit: SUBMITTED/ Jon Broadbent
The aurora borealis occurs when energized particles from the sun hit the Earth’s atmosphere and are deflected to the magnetic poles by Earth’s magnetic field. The particles interact with the atmosphere, creating colours.
Colours of aurora vary depending on the altitude where the solar particles combine with oxygen and nitrogen in the atmosphere.
“Yellow and pink are rare and associated with high solar activity, blue and purple are little more common and green is most common,” said former president of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, Chris Gainor in a previous interview with iNFOnews.ca.
Cell phones often pick up colours that can’t be seen with the naked eye.
“Sometimes the eye in your phone camera is different than ours, it changes the look of aurora,” he said. “Looking through telescopes or taking photographs with different cameras can change the appearance.”
These brilliant photographs taken in Kamloops and the Okanagan show all colours of the rainbow.
The aurora borealis is notoriously difficult to predict, but according to the NOAA’s three-day forecast, it isn’t likely the aurora will be seen in southern BC for the next few days.
This stunning photo of northern lights over a pasture was taken in the Kamloops area in October.
Image Credit: SUBMITTED/ Travis Bonner
The sky over Trout Creek, Summerland bursts with colourful Northern lights.
Image Credit: SUBMITTED/ Jon Broadbent
All the colours of the rainbow are seen in this aurora borealis display in Kamloops.
Image Credit: SUBMITTED/ Peter Olsen
Northern lights shimmer over hills and water in the Kamloops area in October.
Image Credit: SUBMITTED/ Bonnie Pryce
The northern lights and starry sky was photographed in the Kamloops area in October.
Image Credit: SUBMITTED/ Bonnie Pryce
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