CHRISTCHURCH – A purple-green Aurora australis lit the skies across New Zealand’s lower South Island, with vivid sightings documented at Canterbury’s Lake Ellesmere, Omarama Station and across Queenstown.
The display drew widespread attention as locals captured distinct bands and shifting hues, adding to a run of memorable southern lights across New Zealand this year.
Where it was seen
- Lake Ellesmere, Canterbury – Photo credit: Merv Moodie
- Omarama Station – Photo credit: Holly Keeling
- Queenstown – Photo credits: Michelle Baskett
What witnesses reported
Holly Keeling, who was returning from hunting on Omarama Station, described seeing “the most amazing southern lights.”
“I thought, oh, the sky looks funny. But you couldn’t really see the bright colours without the camera, you could just tell that something wasn’t quite normal with the sky.”
When Keeling looked back at a photo she had taken, she said she was shocked by the vivid purples and greens that appeared on screen.
“I took a photo and I was like OMG, it was amazing,” she said. “It’s definitely one of the best ones I’ve seen since living here.”
Another observer captured a sequence that showed the lights shifting colour and brightness over time, with curtains of light intensifying and fading over several minutes.
What drives the glow
Aurorae occur when charged particles from the Sun are funnelled by Earth’s magnetic field towards the polar regions and collide with gases high in the atmosphere, causing them to glow. Different gases and altitudes can produce the purple and green tones seen over the South Island.
Displays are typically most frequent and intense at higher latitudes closer to the magnetic pole, but during periods of stronger solar activity the auroral oval expands, making the southern lights visible much further north than usual, including over populated centres.
In New Zealand and Australia, official space-weather monitoring is coordinated by meteorological and geophysical agencies, with alerts and outlooks issued to help operators of power grids, aviation and communications networks manage the risks that can come with major geomagnetic storms. The Australian Space Weather Forecasting Centre provides aurora watches and warnings for the wider region when solar conditions suggest heightened activity is likely.
Recent activity in New Zealand
- January 2026: A strong solar storm produced auroral sightings reported as far north as the lower North Island, briefly expanding viewing well beyond the usual southern fringe.
Earth Sciences NZ said space weather like this can be anticipated based on observations of the Sun’s activity, including large solar flares and coronal mass ejections, which are also tracked by international bodies such as the U.S. National Weather Service’s Space Weather Prediction Center.