Some Colorado night sky viewers catch a glimpse of the northern lights
Some night sky viewers in northern Colorado got a rare treat for this part of the country. The northern lights were visible overnight in a few select areas.
Staff from the National Weather Service in Colorado said very early Monday morning they were seeing good pictures coming in of the aurora borealis. In a Facebook post, they said the photos were taken in areas including Fort Collins, which is about 25 miles away from the Colorado Wyoming border, and Cheyenne, Wyoming.
They encouraged people to keep their eyes to the night skies, and said that with the moon going down it would lead to less light in the sky and that it "might be the best chance in a long time" to see the beautiful natural light show.
Occasionally energy from solar flares pushes the aurora away from the North Pole and towards the far Northeast, upper Midwest and Washington state. And in some very rare cases, it is visible in Colorado. The U.S. Space Weather Prediction Center issued a strong Geomagnetic Storm alert on Monday, and indicated that in addition to the late Sunday and early Monday morning visuals, there's a chance the northern lights might also be visible in parts of the U.S. Monday night into Tuesday morning. Colorado will have partly cloudy skies Monday night. There will be a few more clouds compared to last night, according to First Alert Meteorologist Ashton Altieri.
"Get away from city lights and look north," the NWS wrote.