Thanks to a rare extreme solar storm, tens of millions of people around the world got a spectacular view of the Northern Lights on Friday night.
But in New York, the only thing in the sky was pea soup. New Yorkers, though, are chronic FOMO sufferers and some posted pics of the supposed light show.
In reality, the images just showed the lights of local landmarks shining on the low-hanging cloud cover.
“My favorite genre of tweet tonight: people who think they’re seeing the aurora in NYC but in fact are just seeing the lights from the Kosciuszko Bridge reflected in the clouds,” Rebecca Seidel posted on X.
Photos and videos of the Northern Lights came in from all over the world, from Ukraine to south Florida and Switzerland, where the lights looked like a painting over the Jungfraujoch.
It was considerably less stellar in the five boroughs.
“It took me hiking to the darkest corner of Inwood in upper Manhattan and using a six second exposure and I’m still not convinced it isn’t just Hudson County reflecting off the haze,” Matthew Kael posted on X.
While a people on X insisted they had glimpsed the Northern Lights from NYC, the majority were pretty sure they hadn’t.
“I’m starting a support group for people who didn’t see the Northern Lights last night,” posted one user named Helen Nettleship. “We are valid. Stop erasing our existence Any joiners This is our flag”
The “flag” was a photo of street lights.
A few slapped up the hashtags #NororaBorealis and #ignoraborealis.
Some were good-natured about seeing the spectacular light display everywhere but New York. Others, not so much.
“Me seeing everyone’s northern lights photos but I’m stuck in this filthy f—king bright ass city called NYC,” one person griped.
“I’ve never hated/regretted living in NYC until this moment scrolling through everyone’s pics of the northern lights,” an X user called Max commented.
Said another poster: “No northern lights in nyc…thanks Eric Adams.”
(Adams, of course, was in Rome and does not control the weather.)
The light show was set to continue on Saturday night — but the weather forecast offered more bad news for New Yorkers. Though Saturday began with sunny skies, clouds were expected later in the day with some showers predicted for overnight. W
eather forecasters say New Yorkers may have a small window for when they might glimpse the lights — just after sunset, shortly after twilight ends.
One option for New Yorkers is to simply watch the livestream of the aurora, sponsored by Explore.org.
The aurora was originally expected to be viewed across a massive arc spanning North America: from Virginia to southern Alabama, covering Colorado and ending in Northern California, with the clearest visibility available to the more northern states.
Geomagnetic storms are caused by strong energy pulses released from the sun that slam against our planet.The source of this storm has been traced to a vast sunspot cluster that’s 17 times the diameter of Earth, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
