Reporter Paul Valencia did not have to leave Clark County to witness the Northern Lights

Paul Valencia
ClarkCountyToday.com

The Northern Lights.

To me, it was a myth.

OK, not really. I knew they were real. 

But at 53 years old, I had never seen them, other than in pictures or in video.

I had never experienced them with my own eyes — until Friday night and early Saturday morning.

And I never figured I’d ever see them here, in Clark County, Washington. Right here at home.

Many years ago, when forecasters called for the potential for the Northern Lights to be seen in Southwest Washington, I drove my family north, to go find a spot away from the city lights, to look, yep, north.

We went up to Castle Rock, left Interstate 5, and drove on a highway another 30 minutes. 

Now remember, when the Northern Lights are “in the forecast,” that does not mean it will happen. Especially in these parts. It means it could happen. That night, we didn’t see anything. 

But on Friday afternoon, when we heard that the most severe geomagnetic storm since 2005 was in the forecast, well, we were intrigued.

Then, it happened.

At around 11:30 p.m., the Valencia family could see the Northern Lights from our front yard in east Vancouver. With the naked eye. The streaks. And even a little bit of color.

To be fair, while it was a great moment to see the Northern Lights, it was not like the pictures or videos I have seen from people in Alaska, Canada, or Iceland. But cool, nonetheless.

With just our cameras on our phones, using night mode, we captured some decent photos from our neighborhood. We even saw some more of the colors.

Then we decided to get in the car and head north.

This time, though, we only needed to go to Hockinson. 

The Northern Lights welcomed us with some moments that took up a third of the sky.

At low intensity, with not much or no color, the Lights look like wisps of clouds. White streaks. 

But these clouds change in shape and size, almost every few seconds. 

We took more photos, and we got to see more colors in those photos.

A few minutes later, we watched the lights dance. Yes, that is what it looked like. The lights were dancing. As if God had a flashlight outside of this big tent of His, just waving it around. 

Waves. That’s the word. It looked like waves of lights, crashing into each other like waves in the ocean.

Then, at about 1:30 a.m., looking north to northwest, we witnessed … well, I don’t know what I really witnessed. It was just glorious.

Part of the sky turned purple. Another turned green. And in between, there were those wispy streaks. This was with the naked eye. No need for night-mode cameras. The naked eye!

I am a geek when it comes to meteor showers, or finding man-made satellites when I look into the night sky. I used to track the International Space Station to see when it would pass by Clark County. Last year, we saw Starlink. 

We’ve been blessed with some incredible Perseid meteor showers through the years in the summer and one night we “froze” during Gemini meteor showers on a clear night in December once.

But last night? That was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in the sky.

We watched lights dancing, and we didn’t have to leave Clark County to see it.

Awestruck.

Note: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the NOAA, calls for another opportunity for the Northern Lights to be seen in Clark County tonight, Saturday, May 11: https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/communities/aurora-dashboard-experimental