Northern lights' colorful display dazzles skygazers in Western Pennsylvania

Residents from around Western Pennsylvania enjoyed a colorful sky show late Friday and early Saturday as a strong solar storm sparked a display of the northern lights in many areas around the United States.

WTAE meteorologist Jill Szwed said it’s the strongest geomagnetic storm since Halloween 2003 and offered an explanation of what’s happening.

“A geomagnetic storm is a disruption in the Earth’s magnetosphere. It starts with a solar coronal mass ejection (CME) where a ‘cloud’ of plasma from the sun travels through space and arrives at Earth. CMEs typically take several days to arrive, but during the most intense storms they can arrive in as little as 18 hours,” she said. “The geomagnetic storm can cause disruptions in satellite communications, the power grid and radios, but also lead to the auroras.

“The charged particles from the sun interact with the gases in our atmosphere to give us the dancing colors across the night sky. It is rare to see the auroras, let alone (see) them so vividly in western Pennsylvania.”

Szwed said the solar storm would continue through the weekend.

“If you’re lucky, the Northern Lights may be visible low, near the horizon tonight. This is an especially active solar cycle, which is expected to peak in 2025,” she said. “So we may have more chances to view the aurora borealis right from our own backyard.”

Rob Steenburgh, a scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center, told the Associated Press that the best views of the sky show could come from phone cameras, which are better at capturing light than the naked eye.

Matt Brudy, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service Pittsburgh office, was able to capture a camera image of the northern lights at his home in northern Allegheny County.

“It was a faint hue, but you could see the sky was pink,” he said, noting it was his first time witnessing the northern lights. “It was pretty neat.”

Brudy said skies were mostly clear over Pittsburgh and areas to the west, assisting views of the lights, but cloud cover interfered with the area to the east, in the Laurel Highlands.

The Pittsburgh region is at the very southern point of the area where the lights may be visible overnight from Saturday to Sunday, he said, but cloud cover will be more widespread, making local views of the lights less likely.

“Chances are less likely,” he said. “It’s not zero, but it’s pretty low.”

Many observers captured images of a purplish or pink hue filling all or part of the skies across the region.

I still can't believe what we all got to witness last night. The Northern Lights. Over #Pittsburgh. I've sat outside for hours countless times over the years, even if there was the slightest chance we could see them and have always come up empty. Not last night. Absolutely unreal pic.twitter.com/eIFsw8PG2a

— Dave DiCello (@DaveDiCello) May 11, 2024

WOW. The northern lights were so beautiful in Western PA last night.

Here are some pictures and video folks sent in of the aurora borealis from around the region @WTAE pic.twitter.com/by9f9Fmw6c

— Tom Garris (@TomWTAE) May 11, 2024