Aurora Borealis reaches Southern California
For the first time in quite a long time, the Aurora Borealis a.k.a. The Northern Lights make an abnormally bright appearance down here in Southern California. On May 10th, the sun passed below the horizon at 7:42pm and by around 8:30pm, the sky was already starting to light up. All throughout the night up until the sun came back up with purple, red, and green bands dancing around. During this night, as typical with the Aurora, the brightness would vary throughout the night. It would spike with very bright bands of dancing colors and it would sometimes be very faint and only visible with cameras. When the Aurora was bright, it was easily visible with your naked eyes.
The following night, on May 11th, the Aurora appeared again as expected but only early on in the night. Those who drive up around sunset got to see the Aurora until around 10:00pm at the latest depending on their elevation and how dark the sky was where they were at. Many people drove up the higher elevations later at night and didn't see anything, this is just the risk you take when trying to view things in nature, it's definitely worth the effort though if you get to see it.
For Orange County, this amazing natural light show would have been visible if it weren't for the marine layer that sat above almost the entire county, blocking the view of the sky. The only place it was visible in Orange County was up on Saddleback via a rugged off road trail or a long overnight hike. For those who chose to drive a little, the Aurora was visible in high points in San Diego County, Los Angeles County, and San Bernardino County. From San Diego County, the best spot seemed to be Mt. Laguna which sits at 5,777' and has a great view to the north. From San Bernardino County, one of the best spots was from Big Bear Lake which has a high elevation and somewhat dark skies with a good view to the north. Joshua Tree was also a good spot with dark skies where many people got to see it. From Los Angeles County, the best view was from Mountain High's North Resort and other places along highway 2 which had a clear view to the north with a high elevation.
How can you see it next time?
When trying to predict nature and so many varying factors, there's almost never a guarantee. However, when a good potential Aurora viewing is predicted again, it's definitely worth the effort to try and see it because typically you'd have to put in a lot more effort and a lot more money to see it in any other circumstance. What caused this event was a massive eruption on the sun which created a huge solar flare that hit earths atmosphere. If we experience another large solar flare from the sun, we will likely get to see the Aurora again but we'll only have a couple days notice. Follow us on Instagram and we'll definitely post about a chance of seeing this again.