OPINION: Outdoor escapades: Northern lights return better and brighter

Annalise Braught, The Bemidji Pioneer, Minn.
·2 min read

May 13—It was an exciting weekend across the country as the northern lights made some impressive showings on Friday and Saturday nights.

After spending an awesome evening watching the northern lights on Friday,

I wasn't planning on putting too much effort into going out to see the lights the following evening, especially since all the forecasts seemed to be drawing the conclusion that Friday night would be the best show.

Close to 11 p.m. or so as my husband Nathan and I were lying in bed Saturday night, he rolled over and was like, "I'm just going to go look outside and see if I see any lights," and scurried out of bed.

I, in my already half-asleep stupor, just laughed it off and rolled over to get some sleep. But a moment later, I got a text from Nathan with a photo of the aurora sprawled across the sky above our house — which is pretty impressive considering we live right in the middle of town with several street lights on our road.

So, of course, I couldn't help myself, threw some shoes on and ran out to join him in the driveway. And sure enough, the lights were back.

We stayed for a little bit and the lights were nice, but not much better than what we'd seen the night before and we were tired so were about to head back inside when all of a sudden a super bright streak of green appeared over our neighbor's house to the north.

I started taking some pictures on my phone and then around 11:30 p.m., out of nowhere, the lights just exploded like we'd never seen before.

Steaks of colors shot across the horizon and up over our heads, bright enough I was even able to capture it on video.

It only lasted a few minutes, but was one of the most incredible experiences we'd ever had. There was something so powerful about it all, staring up at the majesty of nature, thinking about the science behind why this happens in the atmosphere and getting to see it with our own eyes.

As we went to bed about an hour after our first attempt, I was glad Nathan got a hankering to go check one more time and that we stayed out in the driveway just a few more minutes, allowing us to witness the view of a lifetime.