Saw it in N Texas between dark +15minutes and about 2:30 this morning. Really nice. I've waited since 2003 to see another from my front yard. I caught the big ones during that last solar max including the X27 flare auroras. This show came from a merging of several X-class flares in quick succession. There was an X5.7 today that may also give us a show in 2-3 days depending on whether it had an earth-directed component.
spaceweather.com
spaceweatherlive.com
other links in related posts also have additional sites to track things like this. Good luck.
It really depends how far south you are and how strong the solar storm will get. You should look for some dark place close up. But it might be, that it is only visible on the northern parts of the US. Even seeing it there is quite uncommon.
To the naked eye it was a slight purple, pink, red tinge to the northern sky. With a 3 second exposure on my phone camera it was vivid purple to pink.
To really see it you need a short timed exposure with aperture opened up on the camera - so small F-stop or high-speed film setting for low light, >800 speed.
I am right outside a huge metro area and directly in front of me there is a large warehouse facility with floodlights on all night long. In spite of this I could see the slight color change in the clouds (it was very cloudy here until nearly the end of the show) since the normal light color tends towards blues and oranges depending on how far off of north you are looking.
I saw red curtains here back in 2003 during a storm that also was visible in Mexico. I knew where I needed to be in my yard to be able to see things. That display began a little east of north and walked slowly west until it faded. With that in mind, that is how I started watching for lighting changes this time. The auroral oval moves from east to west during these events and for me here in N Texas it appears to be visible only for about 20 degrees either side of north before it fades. In general, if the oval extends to Kansas or into Oklahoma then we have a shot at seeing something down here since we can see the upper atmosphere from this distance. It's a bit like trying to photograph sprites above thunderstorms in that you need to be a long way away from the storm to be able to see the activity above it. I did take a photo behind me to the south and it shows aurora too so that is how I knew this was a powerful storm that would be visible a lot farther south than my place.
We should have more of these events over the next 2-3 years so keep your eyes open. Find Polaris at your location and monitor space weather reports to get a feel for the likelihood that you can see something there.
