News - Blogs - The northern lights make their way south

The northern lights make their way south
Published: 10/25/2011 4:14 PM
Last Modified: 10/25/2011 4:15 PM

The northern lights shine over West Grand Traverse Bay near Traverse City, Mich., on Monday night, Oct. 24 2011. The lights, also known as aurora borealis in the northern hemisphere, are caused by charged particles striking the Earth's atmostphere. (AP Photo/Record-Eagle, Jan-Michael Stump)

That mysterious red glow you saw on the horizon last night? It wasn’t a wildfire or aliens.

It was billions of charged particles ejected from the sun slamming into the atoms in our upper atmosphere. Aurora borealis!

That’s right; the northern lights were visible last night as far south as Oklahoma and across much of the northern hemisphere. A G2 (moderate) magnetic storm hit right about the time of nightfall across much of the United States, sending the aurora into the lower latitudes.

Unfortunately, since I didn’t know it was on its way, I watched some silly baseball game inside my apartment instead of finding a nice, dark place north of town to observe the splendor (That mistake has been henceforth fixed. You can sign up for email alerts and updates from the Space Weather Prediction Center’s website here).

I have never seen the aurora before, and every time I see a picture of the haunting, glowing skies, I am envious of those who have (Though, to see them, at least frequently, I’d have to live in a much higher latitude…but I'm not too keen on bitter, unforgiving cold).

Here is a video of the aurora borealis taken Monday in Michigan. It’s closer to the pole, and got a better show than we did, but Michigan is still quite far away from normal aurora reach.

Do you have photos of the aurora? Send them to me at jerry.wofford@tulsaworld.com and I’ll put them up here!

--Jerry Wofford

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Almanac

Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun
Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec

	Temperature		Precipitation
Date	High Temp	Low Temp	Total	Month to date	Historical average
1	44°	16°	0	0.00	0.05
2	59°	24°	0	0.00	0.11
3	57°	33°	0	0.00	0.16
4	68°	37°	Trace	0.00	0.21
5	69°	29°	0	0.00	0.26
6	66°	33°	0	0.00	0.32
7	59°	38°	0.05	0.05	0.38
8	51°	34°	0	0.05	0.44
9	44°	36°	0.01	0.06	0.51
10	62°	37°	0.07	0.13	0.57
11	54°	28°	0	0.13	0.64
12	44°	30°	0.25	0.38	0.70
13	55°	40°	0.01	0.39	0.76
14	°	°			0.83
15	°	°			0.89
16	°	°			0.95
17	°	°			1.02
18	°	°			1.09
19	°	°			1.16
20	°	°			1.23
21	°	°			1.31
22	°	°			1.38
23	°	°			1.46
24	°	°			1.53
25	°	°			1.61
26	°	°			1.69
27	°	°			1.77
28	°	°			1.85

TEMPERATURE

RAINFALL

SNOWFALL

Weather World

Follow Jerry Wofford on Twitter for updates during severe weather conditions.

Tulsa weather milestones of 2013 (as of Feb. 12)

Highest temperature: 70 on Jan. 11 (Record: 115 on Aug. 15, 1936)
Lowest temperature: 15 on Jan. 16 (Record: Minus-16 on Jan. 22, 1930)
Hottest month (average): 40.5 degrees in January (Record: 91.7 degrees on July 1980)
Coldest month (average): 40. 5 degrees in January (Record: 21.7 in January 1918)
Most snowfall (day): 0.1 of an inch on Feb. 12(Record: 13.2 inches on Feb. 1, 2011)
Most snowfall (month): 0.1 of an inch in February(Record: 22.5 inches in February 2011)
Most rainfall (day): 0.91 of an inch on Jan. 29 (Record: 9.27 inches on May 26-27, 1984)
Most rainfall (month): 1.54 of an inch in January (Record: 18.18 inches on September 1971)
Highest wind speed: 30 mph on Jan. 30
Previous day with any rain: Feb. 12
Previous day with 1 inch or more of rain: Oct. 17, 2012
Previous day with any snow: Feb. 12
Previous day with freezing temperatures: Feb. 12
Read regular updates on Oklahoma's unpredictable weather and learn more about meteorology from the Tulsa office of the National Weather Service.

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Contributors
Staff Writer Althea Peterson started writing for the Tulsa World in March 2007 after previous stops at the Norman Transcript in 2006 and the Oklahoma Gazette in 2005. She followed her older brother from rural Wisconsin (with a public school that never seemed to call snow days) to the University of Oklahoma, but did not follow his pursuit to study meteorology. However, she tries to find as many opportunities to report on the weather as possible.

Staff Writer Jerry Wofford came to the Tulsa World in 2010 from The Manhattan Mercury in Manhattan, Kan. Originally from western Arkansas and a graduate of the University of Oklahoma, Jerry has lived in Tornado Alley his entire life and is one of those people who goes outside when the sirens go off.

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