Recent explosions on the surface of the sun have sent clouds of charged particles, known as coronal mass ejections, hurtling through the solar system, according to AccuWeather. Keep an eye to the sky again Thursday night if you live across the far northern U.S.: The aurora borealis, or northern lights, may be making a rare appearance for the second night in a row. Another round of northern lights is possible on Thursday night.Visit our website to plan your aurora adventure. The storms can drive the aurora further south from its usual position over the polar region. Northern Lights are spectacular in Cook County year-round and are most strongly visible in fall and winter.NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center has issued a G3 (strong) geomagnetic storm watch into Thursday.
For your best chance, find an area, like the top of a hill, where you can have unobstructed sky views to the north. It’s worth noting that it’s only possible to see the Northern Lights when the sky is clear, and they’re not competing with ambient city lights. It can help spell out when the show might take place, if at all.
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It’s a good idea to download a mobile app, like Northern Light Aurora Forecast, to get a better idea of the likelihood of seeing the Northern Lights in your area. They’re only going to get better and more frequent in the coming years, although they are also more active around the fall and spring equinoxes. In the years closest to solar maximum (slated to happen in 2024), the shows are more frequent, energetic, and colorful (whereas they’re more lethargic in the years near solar minimum). There’s an 11-year cycle that has historically predicted when the lights would be most visible. It’s the same process at work in neon signs.Įven if you don’t get to see the kaleidoscopic illuminations this time, your chances will only improve over the next few years. When the particles mix with oxygen, green and red lights appear they glow blue and purple when they join with nitrogen. As those elements meet the Earth’s magnetic field, they’re attracted to the poles, where they excite and mix with the gases in our atmosphere. The aurora borealis is caused when the sun shoots electrically charged protons and electrons toward the Earth during a solar storm. Northern Lights Forecast Aurora Webcam Live Northern Lights webcam north of.
What causes the Northern Lights-and when might we see them again? Images of the Aurora Borealis in Northeast Minnesota. However, it’s more probable that if the dancing display happens in the continental U.S., it’ll be seen in the northern parts of Washington, Montana, the Dakotas, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Maine. This weekend may be one of those extraordinary times. That means the Northern Lights could be visible as far south as Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and all of the Northeastern states. While the Northern Lights, a phenomenon that sees ethereal streamers of colored light pirouette across the night sky, are often relegated to the climes nearest the Arctic, on rare occasions, they can make their way as far south as the Lower 48 U.S. It also means that there’s a larger swath of the hemisphere that could potentially see the aurora.įor October 1 and 2, that number is six (and a five on September 30 and October 3). The higher the number is, the better the probability the nighttime spectacle will occur.
Scientists at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute rank the probability of seeing the aurora borealis on a scale of zero to nine, which is called the Kp Index. Three weeks ago, the Northern Lights, a phenomenon that sees ethereal streamers of colored light pirouette across the night sky, made a rare appearance in the Lower 48, coloring the skies in places like Wisconsin and Michigan.įor those who missed it, fear not, as you may have another chance to see the illusive aurora borealis in the Lower 48 this weekend.
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