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Aurora borealis over Vernon (photo by Shawn Berglund)
By Liam Verster
Visible all night Wednesday

Aurora borealis to be visible in the Okanagan Wednesday night

Feb 1, 2022 | 5:46 PM

The Northern Lights will be visible in much of Canada Wednesday night, including over the Okanagan Valley.

Colleen O’Hare, the Outreach Program Director for the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada (RASC) Okanagan Centre, told Vernon Matters that, weather permitting, aurora borealis will be visible in the region.

“The sun burped out a coronal mass ejection [Monday], and it’s expected to reach us [Wednesday],” said O’Hare.

A coronal mass ejection is a release of plasma, which, when combined with electrically charged particles from the sun hitting the oxygen and nitrogen in earth’s upper atmosphere, creates the shimmering wavering green lights.

“The sun is on an 11 year cycle, and we’re just coming out of a very quiet part of the cycle and the sun is ramping up the activity over the next few years, so every year the aurora will be getting better and better,” said O’Hare.

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“This is a fairly major coronal mass ejection, so [RASC] is predicting some brighter than normal aurora seen over a larger area.”

O’Hare told Vernon Matters that the shimmering green Northern Lights should be visible in Vernon at midnight universal time, which translates to 4 p.m. local time.

She added that they will be visible all night, and encourages people that want to get the best view to travel out of town a bit to avoid light pollution.

by Liam Verster
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