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Southern Finland gets a brief taste of Northern Lights

Northern Lights will likely fade in southern Finland this week but may reappear toward the end of October.

Northern lights over the city of Hämeenlinna in the south of Finland.
Nature photographer Camilla Sipponen captured rare sightings of Aurora Borealis from Hauho in the Hämeenlinna region. Image: Camilla Sipponen
  • Yle News

Social media users in Finland flooded channels with superb images of the Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights this week as the night-time display spread across autumn skies.

The Finnish Meteorological Service (FMI) said that the phenomenon has been particularly active in recent days and has even been visible in southern Finland.

Stargazers who found themselves in the right place at the right time, like nature photographer Camilla Sipponen,were also able to record the celestial event in the Hauho region of Hämeenlinna, southern Finland.

"Northern Lights are not an everyday treat in southern Finland, so I always try to capture them when they occur and each time the colours are different," Sipponen said.

Solar storms expected to pick up in October

According to the Astronomical Association Ursa, the Northern Lights can appear as an arc that can move above the observer in the shape of a corona or crown, sometimes spanning the entire vault of the sky.

Meanwhile the solar winds that spawn the upper atmosphere disturbances that appear as Northern Lights are still moving at speeds of up to 600 kilometres per second. However, their speed is gradually expected to decline, causing the nocturnal displays to retreat further north.

As a result, this month will remain relatively quiet until around 20 October, when space weather forecasts anticipate solar storms will accelerate to the point where the Northern Lights may once more be visible throughout the country.