Tassie Copped A Bloody Beautiful Eyeful Of The Southern Lights Last Night

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Published

May 28, 2017

Before we begin, let’s get the obvious jokes out of the way:

No, Mother, it’s just the northern lights.

Well, it’s not the northern lights. It’s Aurora Australis, the southern equivalent – and it lit up the skies of New Zealand and southern Tasmania last night. It looked much more intense in NZ, if the photos are to be believed, but the good folk of Tassie still copped an eyeful of glowing green sky.

The aurora was reportedly caused by a solar flare which whipped up storm-like conditions on the South Pole, which caused a much stronger reaction in the upper atmosphere than is usually seen.

Have a squiz at some of the pics on social media.

Big #AuroraAustralis glow across the southern sky of #Tasmania tonight. From my deck, trees become dark shapeshifting silhouettes pic.twitter.com/QrJvhFiYt4

— Vince Taskunas (@VinceTaskunas) May 28, 2017

sweet southern lights at 8:30pm tonight #auroraaustralis #tasmania pic.twitter.com/JqZAF9iMCz

— §u (@SussanSays) May 28, 2017

A stellar end to the weekend w @roamingmoth #auroraaustralis #aurora #tasmania #mtnelson #southernlights pic.twitter.com/LWsKJGnQuO

— Catherine Cavallo (@CavalloDelMare) May 28, 2017

View of tonight’s aurora from our garden. #lovedunedin #Aurora #AuroraAustralis @StormHour @NZWeatherNow @WeatherWatchNZ pic.twitter.com/kYkOSBHo0V

— Chris Hibberd (@chrisanddannz) May 28, 2017

Well played Dunedin, Well played! An amazing aurora delivered with real panache.Full marks! #Dunedinisgreat #auroraaustralis pic.twitter.com/vd4WiLkw9J

— Ian Griffin (@iangriffin) May 28, 2017

Watching it now..#auroraaustralis #aurora #newzealand @MetService @EarthandClouds @weatherwyou @CloudAppSoc @CloudwatchHQ pic.twitter.com/HgYvuRYHAf

— Anne-Marie (@AnneMarie224) May 28, 2017