Northern lights illuminate southern Sask. skies

Northern lights lit up Saskatchewan’s skies on Wednesday night, as photographers jumped at the opportunity to document the aurora.

Ryan Kiedrowski, a professional photographer shot some stunning photos along Wood River near Lafleche, Sask.

(Ryan Kiedrowski)

“I kind of keep an eye on the Aurora forecasts when I have time and they were saying ‘hey, conditions are going to be pretty favourable.’ So I thought I’ll keep and eye out and if it happens, it happens,” Kiedrowski said.

“I used to spend hours out in cold fields waiting and looking for the perfect shot, now my theory is if I can see it from my house then I’ll go out.”

(Ryan Kiedrowski)

Kiedrowski said it’s unusual to see the phenomenon so pronounced as far south as Lafleche. He’s been involved with photography professionally and as a hobbyist for about 25 years and said Wednesday night’s lights would rank in the top five best.

“The Lefleche area is blessed with incredibly dark skies, which makes shots like the ones I got last night that much more perfect,” he said.

Akash Christian captured this image just north of Regina Wednesday night.

CTV Regina meteorologist Bradlyn Oakes said geomagnetic storm watches have been in effect over the past few days, which contributes to the phenomenon.

“These watches are from the space weather prediction centre, which is a joint program from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and National Weather Service in the U.S. According to them, a ‘Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) erupted later on March 28 associated with an M1 flare,” she said.

“As for observations from the SWPC, [Wednesday] night a G1 storm was observed with a Kp index of five which is an indicator of the impacts on the earth’s magnetic field. Thursday night current predictions from the SWPC estimate a G3 storm with a Kp index of seven.”

(Akash Christian)

The scale goes up to nine and anything over five indicates a geomagnetic storm. Those storms go as high as level five. As the levels increase, Aurora activity often does as well.

However Oakes said more cloud cover is expected Thursday night and again on Friday, which means viewing won’t be nearly as good as Wednesday night.

Dozens of photographers posted their photos to the Saskatchewan Aurora Hunters Facebook group.