WASHINGTON – A baffling solar storm pulled colorful northern lights unusually far south, surprising space weather experts and treating skywatchers to a rare and spectacular treat.

A storm-chasing photographer captured the strange sky show in Arkansas Monday night. People in Kentucky and Georgia reported their sightings to local television stations. A special automated NASA camera that takes a picture of the sky every minute in Huntsville, Ala., captured 20 minutes of the vibrant red and green aurora borealis.

In Arkansas, Brian Emfinger called the view “extremely vivid, the most vivid I have ever seen. There was just 15 to 20 minutes where it really went crazy.”

Emfinger, a storm chaser, captured the vibrant nighttime images on camera in Ozark, Ark.

He called it “a much bigger deal” than a tornado” because he sees dozens of those every year. This is only the second northern lights in a decade that he has seen this far south.

“They are very rare events,” said NASA scientist Bill Cooke. “We don’t see them this far south that often.”

Officials at the federal Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colo., said they were surprised at the southern reach. The center monitors solar storms, which trigger auroras.

Space weather forecast chief Bob Rutledge said given the size of the solar storm, the lights probably shouldn’t have been visible south of Iowa. The storm was only considered “moderate” sized, he said.

He called the storm unusual, its effects reaching Earth eight hours faster than forecast. But that timing made it just about perfect for U.S. viewing, he said.

“The peak of the intensity happened when it was dark or becoming dark over the U.S., coupled with the clear skies. We did have significant aurora sightings,” Rutledge said. “The timing was good on this.”