Northern Lights Possible In A Handful Of U.S. States Friday Night

ACROSS AMERICA — Aurora borealis forecasting is an imperfect science, but people living in the northern tier of U.S. states have a slight chance of seeing the northern lights Friday night, according to the Space Weather Prediction Center.

People in parts of Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan are in the expected viewing area for the colorful curtains of light, the space weather forecasting arm of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said. As nighttime nears, be sure to check the Aurora — 30-Minute Forecast page.

A geomagnetic disturbance early Friday morning treated people in Fairbanks, Alaska, and Tromso, Norway, to auroras. More disturbances are expected Friday night, and that could result in aurora activity in the northern U.S., according to NOAA’s forecasters. Geomagnetic activity is measured on a scale of 1 to 5, and the event early Friday registered as a G1.

That is still strong enough to produce auroras, William Murtagh, the program coordinator for the Space Weather Prediction Center, told Patch in a phone interview Friday. However, it was not strong enough to trigger alerts of power grid failures or satellite communication outages — the reason the Space Weather Prediction Center monitors geomagnetic activity, he said.

“When we get in category 4s and 5s — severe to extreme — then people start paying attention to how it is affecting technology,” Murtagh said.

Northern lights displays are never guaranteed, of course, but if it happens, it would be a holiday treat for northerners hardy enough to brave the “bomb cyclone” storm unleashing wicked winds that are sending feel-like temperatures far into subzero territory.

For example, in Angle Inlet, Minnesota, the northernmost populated place in the state, it’ll be 12 degrees below zero Friday night, but it’s expected to feel about 40 degrees below zero. The weather forecast is similar in other states that could see the auroras.

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The cold weather could make the auroras more visible, Murtagh said.

“When we get a big cold front that comes sweeping down from Canada, it will often clear out the air, and the seeing quality might be just a little better,” he said.

Although the focus of the agency’s work is space weather and how it affects key systems on Earth, Murtagh offered an informed viewpoint on a couple of other celestial phenomena people experiencing extreme cold may see bursts of color associated with sundogs. halos and light pillars.

When the temperature plunges, tiny ice crystals that form in the atmosphere act as small mirrors that reflect any light beaming up at them from below.

The auroras may also dance on Christmas Eve, too, though the latest forecast showed the northern lights viewing area Saturday will more likely be far north of the U.S.-Canada border, a fairly typical occurrence.

Auroras don’t have to be directly overhead to be observed, NOAA explained, but can be seen by as much as 620 miles away if the lights are bright enough and conditions are right.

The science behind the aurora borealis is complicated. It starts with a blistering hot sun, whose surface is about 6,000 degrees Fahrenheit, but whose atmosphere, or corona, is about a thousand times hotter — so hot the sun’s gravity can’t hold it in place.

Because of that, the sun ejects a continuous stream of plasma — charged particles of electrons and protons known as a coronal mass ejection, or CME, carried by solar wind. At a temperature of about 1.8 million degrees Fahrenheit, it flows outward through the solar system at speeds as high as 900 kilometers per second.

Solar wind is what blows the tails of comets around, and it’s visible as a halo around the sun during an eclipse. When solar winds are directed toward Earth, the CMEs collide with the gasses in Earth’s upper atmosphere in what’s called a geomagnetic storm, creating the potential for aurora displays.

For anyone who wants a deeper understanding, The Conversation has an easily understood explanation of the relationship between charged solar particles and auroras, and the role of magnetic reconnection.

This is a particularly active time for the solar storms that produce northern lights displays. That’s because we’re midway through an 11-year cycle in which the sun’s magnetic fields flip polarity — and that means the northern lights could dance more often in the next decade or so.

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The chances to see the northern lights increase as the 11-year solar cycle enters what’s known as “solar maximum,” when sunspot activity increases 93 million miles from Earth. That is expected to occur from 2024-25, Murtagh said.

It is difficult to say what that could mean in terms of geomagnetic activity and aurora displays, even with 200 years of historical data. That said, he and his colleagues at the Space Weather Prediction Center have not seen anything to suggest “a sunspot cycle that will be exceptional.”

Aurora strength is measured by the Kp index, according to the Space Weather Prediction Center. In general, the chances of seeing the lights are best with a Kp index of at least 5. With a Kp index of 9, the auroras can be seen as far south as St. Louis, Missouri.

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Polar latitudes see the northern lights about half of the nights of any given year, according to NOAA. In Fairbanks, Alaska, the aurora season runs from Aug. 21-April 21. The lights can typically be seen there an average of four out of five nights when the sky is clear and dark enough.

The auroras dance frequently enough in northern states in the continental U.S. that many have developed aurora borealis tourism. Besides Alaska, other U.S. states that most often see northern lights are Washington, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine.