Aurora Australis lights up skies in New Zealand and Australia

Skies light up with Aurora Australis giving the best southern lights show in years.

A ‘solar tsunami’ has helped light up the New Zealand and Australian skies in what people are calling the best southern lights show in years.

On Monday night, social media was full of images of purple, orange and green light over the hills of Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland.

High levels of solar storm activity meant the Aurora Australis could be viewed far farther north than the lights are typically seen.

Early morning risers in Victoria, Australia were treated to a morning surprise with the light show visible from 3.30 am. 

Devlin Lynden, project manager of the University of Otago’s Solar Tsunami project said the auroras in the night sky had reached levels not seen in New Zealand since 2017.

Auroras are wrought by disturbances such as solar flares or storms on the sun’s surface. The latest ones came after the sun let off an enormous burst of energy on Friday. 

The conditions have triggered unusual auroras in the northern hemisphere as well as in New Zealand and Australia. The aurora borealis could be seen across Ireland, and parts of the UK on Sunday night.

“These kinds of events are centred at the [Earth’s] poles, so if there’s going to events at one pole, there’s definitely likely events at the other pole,” Lynden said.