Northern Lights visible across UK down to south coast after intense solar storm

A barrage of charged particles from the Sun illuminated night skies across the entire United Kingdom on Friday and Saturday, pushing vibrant displays of the Northern Lights as far south as Devon, Hampshire and Kent.

While the Aurora Borealis is normally confined to the Arctic Circle and northern fringes of Scotland, the weekend display was powered by an unusually powerful solar event that overwhelmed typical geographic limits.

Why the aurora reached so far south

The display began late last week when the Sun released multiple coronal mass ejections — immense eruptions of plasma and magnetic fields fired directly towards Earth. When this stream of energetic particles collided with our planet’s magnetic shield, it funnelled down along magnetic field lines into the upper atmosphere.

The colours themselves come from basic atmospheric chemistry: charged solar particles crash into oxygen and nitrogen atoms between 80 and 300 kilometres above ground, exciting them and releasing light in shades of pink, green and purple.

What brought the phenomenon to southern England, however, was raw magnetic force. Scientists measure geomagnetic disturbance in nanotesla (nT). Typically, activity needs to reach roughly 200nT for auroras to become visible in northern Britain. On Saturday night, readings hit 600nT — a surge strong enough to push the auroral oval thousands of kilometres south of its standard track.

This kind of deep intrusion is becoming more frequent as the Sun approaches the height of its roughly 11-year solar cycle. Forecasters expect solar activity to peak around 2026, meaning violent coronal eruptions will remain common over the next two years.

Where they were seen

Stargazers across the country documented the lights throughout Friday and Saturday. Sightings were reported in Kendal in Cumbria, Saltburn-by-the-Sea in North Yorkshire, and Winterton-on-Sea in Norfolk, alongside purple and pink glows above Surrey, Wiltshire and the Orkney Islands.

In the south, where high levels of ambient street lighting often wash out faint celestial displays, the sheer strength of the geomagnetic storm allowed the colours to cut through wherever skies stayed clear of cloud cover.

Can you see them again tonight?

The Met Office said sightings could remain possible under clear skies until Tuesday, particularly in Scotland and areas along similar geomagnetic longitudes, though activity is likely to taper off from Saturday's peak.

For those hoping to catch a glimpse, conditions require finding a spot with an unobstructed view towards the northern horizon, away from street lamps. Even if the sky appears merely grey or hazy to the naked eye, a mobile phone camera can often reveal the show. At night, human vision relies on rod cells, which cannot distinguish colours in low light; camera sensors do not share that limitation and can easily gather enough photons over a short exposure to reveal bright purples and greens.