{"id":124122,"date":"2025-01-26T14:20:34","date_gmt":"2025-01-26T14:20:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/northern-lights-forecast-auroras-may-be-visible-in-more-than-a-dozen-northern-us-states-usa-today\/"},"modified":"2025-01-26T14:20:34","modified_gmt":"2025-01-26T14:20:34","slug":"northern-lights-forecast-auroras-may-be-visible-in-more-than-a-dozen-northern-us-states-usa-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/northern-lights-forecast-auroras-may-be-visible-in-more-than-a-dozen-northern-us-states-usa-today\/","title":{"rendered":"Northern lights forecast: Auroras may be visible in more than a dozen northern US states – USA TODAY"},"content":{"rendered":"

The world-famous\u00a0colorful northern lights<\/a> may reveal themselves to a wide swath of Americans Friday night due to an impending solar storm forecast to reach Earth.
The dazzling phenomenon<\/a>, also known as the aurora borealis<\/a>, is renowned for the spectacle it regularly puts on at both of Earth’s poles. But thanks to the solar storm, which could pose a minimal threat to things like\u00a0satellites, GPS signals and power grids<\/a>, the display may be more widely visible than normal.
That’s because when the solar particles interact with Earth’s magnetosphere, the powerful eruption should make the vibrant northern lights visible\u00a0to more of the Northern Hemisphere<\/a>.
Here’s what to know about the northern lights and how to see them this weekend.
See photos:<\/strong>Solar storm makes northern lights visible to much of US, world during weekend<\/a>
For most of the time, auroras are best seen around the magnetic poles of the Northern and Southern hemispheres in Europe, Asia and North America. In the U.S., Alaska is well known to have the best viewing opportunities for the northern lights.
But an incoming solar storm should make the auroras visible farther from the poles, according<\/a>\u00a0to NOAA\u2019s three-day forecast.. The geomagnetic activity detected by NOAA has a Kp index\u00a0of 5, meaning the northern lights will also be brighter,\u00a0according<\/a>\u00a0to the agency.
“If you are in the right place, these aurora can be quite pleasing to look at,” NOAA says.
In the U.S., the auroras may become visible in more than a dozen northern states, according to the Space Weather Prediction Center’s\u00a0experimental Aurora view line<\/a>. The visibility for viewing also will depend on local weather conditions and city lights.
States that may have a decent view of the auroras on Friday are:
A thin red ‘viewline’ representing the southern-most locations from which you may see the aurora on the northern horizon extends to:
Solar storms send particles flowing from the sun that get caught up in Earth’s magnetic field,\u00a0causing colorful auroras to form<\/a>\u00a0as they interact with molecules of atmospheric gases. This weekend, the resulting glowing auroras may be quite a sight \u2013 if you look up at the right time.
Even though conditions are prime for more impending aurora shows, experts have long struggled to accurately forecast exactly when and where<\/a>\u00a0the phenomenon will ever occur. Even the best predictions can accurately be made only a few days or even hours in advance.
But as a rule of thumb, if the weather is clear, the best aurora is usually visible within an hour or two of midnight, according to NOAA<\/a>. And if it looks as if the northern lights will flare up near you, you should get away from cities and travel to dark locations free from light pollution so you can best see them.
The agency also maintains\u00a0an aurora dashboard<\/a>\u00a0that should help skygazers track the phenomenon.
The auroras are\u00a0a natural light display in Earth’s sky<\/a>\u00a0that are famously best seen in high-latitude regions of the Northern and Southern hemispheres.
The phenomenon is caused when electrically charged particles from space enter Earth’s atmosphere and collide with\u00a0molecules and gases like oxygen and nitrogen<\/a>, causing the atmospheric particles to gain energy. To return to their normal state, the particles\u00a0release that energy<\/a>\u00a0in the form of light, according to the\u00a0University of Alaska at Fairbanks Geophysical Institute<\/a>\u00a0website, which tracks the phenomenon.
As auroras form, Earth’s magnetic field\u00a0redirects the particles toward the poles through a process that produces a stunning display of rays, spirals and flickers that have fascinated humans for millennia. Whether hues of green, red, blue and even pink dance about in the sky depends on the altitude where the collisions occur, as well as the composition and density of the atmosphere at the time.
Now that\u00a0the sun is at the height of its 11-year cycle<\/a>, the increase in solar activity has more frequently fueled “space weather”\u00a0that produces the right conditions for northern lights<\/a>\u00a0to flourish.
Regions of intense magnetic activity known as sunspots are proliferating on the solar surface and are capable of releasing intense bursts of radiation resulting in solar flares that can hurtle toward Earth at the speed of light,\u00a0according to NOAA<\/a>. Some of the flares can be accompanied by coronal mass ejections, or clouds of plasma and charged particles, that emerge from the sun’s outermost atmosphere, the corona.
These ejections can collide with Earth\u2019s magnetosphere, the barrier protecting humanity from the harshest effects of space weather, to produce\u00a0geomagnetic storms<\/a>\u00a0that unleash\u00a0spectacular views of the northern lights<\/a>\u00a0in parts of the country where auroras are not often visible.
What’s more, because NASA expects the solar maximum to continue into 2025, aurora chasers should have plenty more opportunities to catch the northern lights.
Eric Lagatta covers breaking and trending news for USA TODAY. Reach him at elagatta@gannett.com<\/em><\/p>\n

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The world-famous\u00a0colorful northern lights may reveal themselves to a wide swath of Americans Friday night due to an impending solar storm forecast to reach Earth.The dazzling phenomenon, also known as the aurora borealis, is renowned for the spectacle it regularly puts on at both of Earth’s poles. But thanks to the solar storm, which could […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":124123,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-124122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124122\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}