Northern Lights make unusual southern appearance over Oslo

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Northern Lights make unusual southern appearance (http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article1571293.ece)
It's not common for the Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis, Nordlys) to glimmer in the skies as far south as Oslo, at least not as brightly as they did late Thursday night.

The heavenly phenomenon occurs regularly in the far northern county of Finnmark, but only once or twice during the course of a winter in southern Norway.

Late Thursday, though, the Northern Lights suddenly sent their characteristic waves of green right over the capital. Meteorologists were surprised. While Oslo residents can spot them occasionally, "it's not often they're so bright," Kristen Gislefoss of the state meteorological institute told Dagbladet.no.
http://cache.aftenposten.no/multimedia/archive/00492/_nordlys5_jpg_492026g.jpg
http://cache.aftenposten.no/multimedia/archive/00492/_nordlys2_jpg_492013g.jpg
http://cache.aftenposten.no/multimedia/archive/00491/_PICT4126r_jpg_491909g.jpg
http://cache.aftenposten.no/multimedia/archive/00492/_nordlys3_jpg_492014g.jpg

I have lived up north and this display was a realive small one. The really great ones comes in a multitude of everchanging colors and covers the whole sky, but the one over Oslo was mostly green and was seen in the north.

[Hrolf Kraki]

They have from time to time made it as far south as the midwest. One even occurred in the city of Warrensburg, Missouri, not far from where I live. http://www.spaceweather.com/aurora/gallery_01may05_page4.htm

[Hakluyt]

I would have thought they'd be visible more often, they're visible a couple nights per year here in Ottawa 10 degrees south of Oslo. There was a particularly intense night last week.

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I would have thought they'd be visible more often, they're visible a couple nights per year here in Ottawa 10 degrees south of Oslo. There was a particularly intense night last week.

It depends on the magnetic poles. This is between Canada and the real pole IIRC.

It probably was the same sun-storm that made it. It was probably spectacular even closer to the magnetic poles, like in N-Norway or N-Canada.