If you look at the night sky on Friday evening, if you’re lucky, you might see the northern lights. After a strong solar flare at the end of June, there is at least a chance that the natural spectacle can be seen again in Bavaria.
Friday night is a higher chance than the rest of the weekend, according to ARD meteorologist Martin Goodde. The solar storm has already reached Earth. “This time it’s more of a can-do situation,” Goodde says. The Northern Lights are currently only visible in the far north.
Away from artificial light – and looking north
If you want to try your luck, after dark around 11pm you should look north as far away from artificial light as possible. As the sky over Bavaria is expected to be only partly cloudy, weather conditions are favorable. “These particles from the late June solar storm have already reached Earth,” Goodde said.
Matthias Graeter of the Nuremberg Regional Observatory lowers expectations. Due to the short summer nights, it hardly gets dark now. Additionally, the nearly full moon makes observation difficult. “The probability of the northern lights is not so small, but whether we will be able to see them in our latitudes is doubtful.” Two experts agree: The chances of romance in the skies are higher on Friday night than the rest of the weekend.
Why are there “more” northern lights?
The reason lies in the sun itself. He is still in a particularly active phase of his cycle, which lasts about eleven years. Over and over again, it ejects billions of tons of charged particles into space in the form of so-called coronal mass ejections. When these particles hit the Earth’s magnetic field, they stimulate oxygen and nitrogen molecules in the atmosphere to glow – creating the green, red or purple northern lights. Graeter estimates that high solar activity will likely decline slowly again in the coming years. Therefore, northern lights in Central Europe may become rarer again in the future.
Forecasts remain short-term
Whether the northern lights will actually become visible can only be assessed relatively quickly. Satellites observe the Sun around the clock. However, exactly how a cloud of particles reaches Earth can only be reliably determined shortly before its arrival. ARD weather expert Gadd reports cases over the past few weeks and months where the appearance of the northern lights over central Europe could be reliably predicted within hours. Given current solar activity, it is only a matter of time before “the beautiful northern lights can be seen over Bavaria again,” Gudd told BR24.