G4 Geomagnetic Storm And Very Strong Northen Lights In Southern Poland

On January 18th, at around 7:00 PM Central European Time, an exceptionally significant event occurred on the surface of the Sun. A powerful eruption, associated with a very strong X1.9-class solar flare, launched a massive and extremely fast coronal mass ejection (CME) into interplanetary space. Most importantly, this ejection contained a substantial component directed straight toward Earth.

Events of this kind carry intense magnetic fields which, upon reaching our planet, interact with Earth’s magnetosphere. The result can be the strongest geomagnetic storms and spectacular auroras, visible far beyond their usual regions of occurrence. This is exactly what happened yesterday — and in fact, the process continued for many hours afterward.

The CME impact occurred around 8:00 PM — almost perfect timing. As soon as information about the impact appeared, there was no time to hesitate. I immediately packed the photography gear I had prepared in advance and headed out into the field. Upon arriving at my location, I set up the tripod, mounted the camera, and configured the intervalometer to take one photo every minute. All that was left was to wait… while closely monitoring the auroral parameters. After several minutes, the aurora began to appear.

The first very subtle auroral pillars — 09:29 PM

09:35 Pm

09:41 PM

09:52 PM

Within just two minutes, it intensified significantly and became faintly visible to the naked eye - 09:54 PM.

I decided to step into the frame for a moment 😄 Here, clearly defined auroral pillars are visible slightly to the left of where I was standing - 09:58 PM.

The first display reached its peak, after which the aurora briefly weakened - 10:00 PM.

After several minutes, the real show began. Pillars reaching higher and higher — and something I had been waiting for, something I had never managed to photograph before — the green aurora finally began to appear! - 10:12 PM

The display briefly stabilized - 10:16 PM.

A beautiful, intense green lit up brightly on the western side. At this point, the pillars were already reaching truly high, stretching from west all the way to the east - 10:21 PM.

After another brief period of stability, the climax of the entire event arrived — and this is where truly incredible things began to happen. The green exploded. - 10:35 PM

The entire auroral oval was rising higher and higher toward the zenith — 10:36 PM

A breathtaking band of green appeared high in the sky — 10:41 PM

Unfortunately, at this point something happened that I had feared from the very beginning. The temperature outside was around –15°C, which caused my lens to simply freeze. A layer of ice formed on the front element of my lens, making it impossible to take sharp images. It felt like photographing through fog. You can already see the beginning of this effect in the last photo above — after that, it only got worse 😏 See for yourselves.

After this shot, I decided that continuing to use the camera no longer made any sense. To avoid further freezing, I took it back to the car. While doing so, I carelessly grabbed the frozen, painfully cold tripod with my bare hand, without gloves.

The result was that I missed the most beautiful green band that appeared that night — something I know only from other people’s reports. I simply had to stay in the car to warm up my hands and legs. I was unable to move the fingers of my right hand, and I didn’t want to risk more serious frostbite.

After about 20 minutes, once my hands and legs had warmed up, I stepped out of the car again. By then, the green had almost completely faded, but beautiful purple-pink pillars were still dancing across the sky. Unfortunately, without a usable camera, I had to settle for handheld photos taken with my smartphone.

To finish, I’m also sharing all the smartphone photos taken at different moments throughout the night.

I encourage everyone in both Americas to keep an eye on the situation right now. Wherever it is currently night, the still excellent conditions should allow the aurora to appear.

Take care, and see you soon!