Photos: Northern lights put on dazzling show for Tri-Citians
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Tri-Cities residents captured vivid aurora displays Tuesday despite light pollution.
- Strong geomagnetic activity raises possibility of northern lights for a second night.
- Seek dark, northern-facing rural sites for best viewing and photos.
The northern lights glowed over the Tri-Cities on Tuesday evening, thrilling residents who saw them.
Derek Schroeder said he and Jessica Soike threw on their sweaters and slippers and ran outside their central Richland apartment as Facebook posts started to pop up saying the northern lights were visible in the Tri-Cities area.
Neither had seen them before, and at first as they peered at the sky at about 5:40 p.m. they couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary, Soike told the Tri-City Herald in an email.
“But once we looked through our phone cameras, the lights were so bright and vivid, we couldn’t believe it,” Soike said.
The photos they snapped show bright lime green and vivid pink lights, despite some light pollution in town.
“We were stunned at the night sky beauty,” said Shroeder in an email.
As they moved to a more dimly lit area nearby, they could see the lights with their naked eyes for a brief moment.
“The whole event took place over about five to six minutes, but it almost felt like 30 because of what we were able to see and capture on our phones,” Schroeder said.
Seeing other photos posted on social media from the Tri-Cities and across the nation made the experience that much more special, Schroeder said.
Shilowe Ensminger was among Tri-Cities area residents who posted photos to Facebook on a group for Richland residents.
She took pictures both off Jadwin Avenue and Dallas Road, where her photo shows a band of green topped with bright pink darkening to purple above the city lights.
April Muller, who lives in central Richland said it was a strong solar storm to compete will all the light pollution in town, including a streetlight across from her house.
“It was pretty special for Lady Aurora to come visit my house on a night when I couldn’t get out,” she told the Tri-City Herald.
Susie Mabry who lives in West Richland said the lights could be seen glowing pink and green there with the naked eye at 6:15 p.m.
She said she stepped onto her back patio and could see the pink color in the sky and then noticed a glow that was not normal.
Some people taking photographs with their cell phones recommended putting them on night mode settings to see the lights at their brightes
What are the northern lights?
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center has issued a series of geomagnetic storm watches in response to coronal mass ejections “that have erupted from the sun over the past several days,” it said Tuesday.
The eruptions of solar material and magnetic fields can set off geomagnetic storms when they arrive earthside, the center said, noting that the storm level could be “severe.”
“Auroras are colorful, dynamic, and often visually delicate displays of an intricate dance of particles and magnetism between the Sun and Earth called space weather,” NASA said on its website.
They’re caused by “electrons colliding with the upper reaches of Earth’s atmosphere,” according to NOAA.
The sun’s particles collide with oxygen and nitrogen atoms, resulting in a spectacular light show that’s known as aurora borealis in the Northern Hemisphere.
“The colors of an aurora come from atoms and molecules being energized by colliding with energetic particles in the upper atmosphere,” NASA said.
Green is the most common aurora color, according to the space agency, but the northern lights can also appear blue, purple, pink, red or white.
McClatchy reporter Sara Schilling contributed to this report.
This story was originally published November 12, 2025 at 12:53 PM.