Brits were mesmerised by the Northern lights for the second night in a row… but clouds spoiled the spectacle for millions

Brits were wowed by the sight of the Northern Lights for the second night in a row, but cloudy weather spoiled the beautiful view for millions.

The night sky brightened from the Scottish Highlands to Penzance in Cornwall after geomagnetic storm G5 hit Earth (peak) on Monday.

On Tuesday the Met Office predicted a G3 storm, meaning more auroras were likely to be visible from the UK.

But cloud maps showed that much of the country was covered in clouds, distorting the view of ethereal dancing lights.

There were holes in the cloud cover over Cornwall, Devon and northern Scotland, as well as parts of Northern Ireland, which could see the lights on Monday night.

Northern Lights spotting app Aurora has reportedly been spotted around Edinburgh and Glasgow, as well as in Lincolnshire, around Birmingham and even in London despite the clouds.

Continental stargazers appear to have better luck, as many sightings have been reported in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany.

At G3 storm level, satellites may experience surface charge problems and services such as satellite navigation and ground-based low-frequency radio may be disrupted.

The Met Office’s cloud cover forecast wasn’t looking good for stargazers across much of the UK on Tuesday

The best place to see the Aurora was in Scotland and Northern Ireland, but it was also visible from the Midlands and Mid-Wales. Forecaster AuroraWatchUK said the lights could be seen across the UK.

In some cases, the lights cannot be seen with the naked eye, and stargazers are forced to watch the show using long exposure photos, a feature available on many smartphone cameras.

The Met Office said geomagnetic activity will ‘return to background levels’ after Tuesday night, so this is the last chance to watch the spectacular show for a while.

Auroras are caused by solar flares (coronal mass ejections (CME)) that strike Earth from the Sun but are deflected by the planet’s magnetic field.

These deviations become visible in the lights we call aurora.

The storm was the remnant of Monday night’s geomagnetic disturbance and was caused by a large CME that ignited from the sun on Sunday and reached us just one day later on Monday.

Although it was a remaining part of the storm, it was still classified as a strong disturbance.

Skies in Moresby, Whitehaven and Cumbria turned bright red on Monday night

The Scottish town of Fort William was lit up in green on Monday

Shropshire was also impressed with a stunning light show on Monday

AuroraWatchUK said there were major peaks in electromagnetism on Earth on Tuesday of 634.6nT (nanoteslas).

The Kp index for Tuesday’s storm reached a very high level of seven out of nine. The Kp index is derived from the German Planetarische Kennziffer, or Planet Index, and is used to measure geomagnetic storms.