Northern Lights puts on an overnight show in Spokane

A rare show of the northern lights was seen in the skies over Spokane Monday night and early Tuesday morning, the National Weather Service said. Photographs taken from the weather service office on Rambo Road northwest of Airway Heights show the colors and waves of charged solar particles being illuminated by in the magnetosphere and upper atmosphere. The northern lights are normally found at high latitudes, but occasionally drop southward under a strong flow of charged particles during a geomagnetic storm. A forecast from the University of Alaska at Fairbanks shows a small chance of the aurora borealis returning tonight for an encore show, weather forecasters said. Skies are likely to be clear tonight again as a system of higher air pressure keeps the Inland Northwest in a period of relatively mild weather with highs in the upper 60s and lows in the upper 30s..