An intense Northern Lights display overnight combined with the peak of the Perseid meteor shower for a dazzling sky show that lasted for hours. This rare combination delighted skywatchers across Michigan and other northern states. The first reports of faint auroras started coming in after 11 p.
m. Sunday, then things really kicked into gear: Green and purple lights, and then dazzling oranges and pinks were painted across the sky as the colors got more intense. Conditions at the time were a G3 geomagnetic storm - a notch stronger than what was expected from recent solar activity reaching earth.
This sparked the delightful overnight show that kept people up way past their bedtimes. And the beautiful colors were visible from all over last night. People living near Mackinac Island and Torch Lake captured beautiful shots.
Workers on Great Lakes freighters snapped their own beauty pics. And the lights were visible downstate, too, from Grand Rapids to Lansing and Southeast Michigan. “This was a more intense showing,” meteorologists from the National Weather Service in Gaylord said.
“Typically, northern lights to the naked eye are an eerie whitish glow; this time, we could see some pink/red to the naked eye!” Early on, people were reporting seeing meteors from the Perseid shower streaking across the sky. The Perseids peaked overnight, with more than 70 meteors per hour possible. If you missed the show, the meteor shower will still be visible in the night sky until the end of August.
.
