Photos show northern lights visible in NY

NEW YORK (PIX11) – Photos captured the northern lights visible in the sky in New York Thursday evening.

The northern lights turned the night sky pink in parts of New York City, Long Island and counties upstate.

Associated Press photojournalist Daniel Derella captured the glow of the northern lights in the night sky above Queens.

The northern lights could be seen in parts of Long Island in both Nassau and Suffolk counties, including in Roslyn and in Levittown.

The northern lights were also visible in counties north of New York City, including in Monroe in Orange County and in Cold Spring in Putnam County.

Christina Ferrer, who shared photos of the northern lights in Monroe, said it was a "beautiful" sight.

"I always wanted to see the northern lights! They came to me!" Ferrer said.

Photos showed that the northern lights were also visible in Essex County, New Jersey.

A severe solar storm impacting Earth brought the northern lights to portions of the United States on Thursday.

Earlier this week, a massive solar flare was detected on the Sun, followed by a fast-moving coronal mass ejection (CME) directed toward Earth.

The flare sparked solar radiation storm conditions on Wednesday, posing a risk to satellites, communication signals and GPS systems. NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) also issued a severe geomagnetic storm watch for the CME.

As it usually does with impending geomagnetic storms, the SWPC alerted operators of power plants and orbiting spacecraft to take precautions while alerting the Federal Emergency Management Agency about potential power disruptions. Thankfully, those systems are largely capable of mitigating any impacts the general public would notice.

However, it gave us the chance to see the northern lights, which are caused by solar storms interacting with our atmosphere.