Northern Lights visible across Hokkaido in northern Japan | NHK WORLD-JAPAN News

The Northern Lights were visible in Japan’s northernmost prefecture of Hokkaido from Saturday night through early Sunday morning, following a series of solar flares and coronal mass ejections.

The lights, also known as the aurora borealis, lit up the night sky in Nayoro City in the northern part of Hokkaido. The sky began to turn purple at around 7 p.m. on Saturday. Many people posted on social media that they had seen it.

In Rikubetsu Town in eastern Hokkaido, a video camera captured the night sky tinted light purple from sunset until dawn.

An official at an observatory in the town that filmed the image said the lights were believed to be low-latitude auroras as the sky behind the clouds shone brightly.

The director of the observatory pointed out that solar flares caused geomagnetic storms, which allowed the Northern Lights to put on a rare show in a lower latitude like Hokkaido.