GWENT residents enjoyed a spectacular aurora natural light display on Monday night.

Intensified solar activity led to a pulse of energy being released towards Earth meaning that the aurora display, similar to the Northern Lights, could be seen around the world.

Weather forecaster Jonathan Powell spoke to the Argus ahead of the display on Monday afternoon: "In the last 24 hours there has been intensified solar activity and a pulse of energy has been released towards Earth.

"In a nutshell, there is now an increased likelihood either tonight or tomorrow night of seeing aurora, or Northern Lights after sunset.

"The alert status has just gone to Amber, meaning an increased chance of seeing some activity."

Dozens of Argus readers sent in pictures of their view of the aurora display on Monday night.

Further displays of the aurora are expected on Wednesday night, as long as there are clear skies and those looking are far away from artificial lights.

A spokesman from the Met Office website said: "A particularly active sunspot came into view during the early part of last week. This sunspot continued to grow in complexity which has resulted in a number of moderate solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs). Early on Sunday a relatively quick CME left the Sun, arriving on Monday evening as predicted. This produced a strong geomagnetic storm, which measured G4 on a scale of 1 to 5. This was a similar size to the previous largest storm since the Met Office began 24×7 Space Weather operations in spring 2014, which was also a G4."

He added: "To see the northern lights, wait until at least half an hour after sunset, go outside away from artificial lights, let your eyes accustom to the dark and look towards the north."