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On
the night of November 7th and into the early morning of the 8th, the inland
northwest was showered with a spectacular display of Northern Lights or
Aurora Borealis.
The Aurora is defined as glowing,
visual phenomenon associated with geomagnetic activity, which occurs mainly
in the high-latitude night sky. The glow comes from pulses of solar geomagnetic
energy bombarding or exciting magnetically charged particles in the ionosphere,
roughly 100 to 250km above the ground.
Although eastern Washington
and north Idaho do not commonly witness these fascinating light shows,
they typically happen a handful of times during the year. The rarity of
the events in the inland northwest can be attributed to our mid-latitude
location and the amount of cloudiness we typically see.
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Click on images for larger picture.
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www.weather.gov 
