Northern lights appeared in Florida this week. Why that's rare

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A powerful geomagnetic solar storm caused the northern lights to be visible in Florida.

The recent sighting was the first time the northern lights were seen in Florida since May 2024.

Before 2024, the last documented aurora sightings in Florida were in the 1980s.

Earlier this week, a in rarely seen hues of red, green and purple.

Yes, the northern lights – a to the northern polar regions – were , as far south as the Sunshine State.

It's almost unheard of for the colorful display to ever be visible in lower-latitude regions of the Northern Hemisphere. But thanks to powerful bursts of energy from the sun, the northern lights, also called the aurora borealis, were widely across the United States.

On that night, rushed to gather their phones and head outside to . Afte