24 Nebraskaland • December 2025
or much of my life, I believed
that witnessing the Northern
Lights was only possible at the
farthest reaches of the world,
where the ground stays frozen and
the winter nights are long. I grew up
seeing photographs in textbooks and
viewing the shimmering lights on PBS
documentaries, but I never imagined
it could be a Midwestern experience.
It wasn't until 2015 that I discovered,
camera in hand, that on rare occasions
we can witness the magical beauty of
the lights right here in Nebraska.
To be fortunate enough to catch a
glimpse of the aurora borealis, a few
key components need to be at play.
First and foremost, the right mix of
solar conditions must be present. The
lights are caused by charged particles
released by the sun that penetrate the
Earth's magnetic field and interact
with molecules in our atmosphere,
causing a release of light.
In short, the lights are most common
in the days following a large solar flare
or storm on the surface of the sun. On
some occasions, local news outlets
will report an increased likelihood
of seeing the lights, but many times
these solar events go unreported by
mainstream media. As such, I use a
variety of forecasting resources found
online, such as spaceweather.com and
softservenews.com, which report the
current and future forecasted "KP"
number.
The KP is simply a numerical
scale for measuring geomagnetic
activity that spans from 0 to 9; 0
being no activity and 9 being a major
geomagnetic storm with strong
auroras likely. It's also possible to sign
up for alerts from these sources to
receive an email or even text message
if conditions are favorable. In my
personal experience, I've found a KP of
6 or more is necessary to have a chance
of visible auroras this far south.
The second most important data
point to check is the "Bz," or the north-
A faint display in the winter sky near Crawford.
Dec. 30, 2016.
F
