The northern lights may light up the sky Thursday night

Keep your fingers crossed for clear skies: The US Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) is calling for a strong geomagnetic storm that could produce the northern lights.

Usually, we find the northern lights after a strong solar flareHere the magnetic fields become entangled and then break apart, causing an intense burst of radiation that can disrupt high-frequency radio signals to Earth.

The flare is usually followed by a coronal mass ejection or CME. A CME is a fast-moving stream of particles emitted by the Sun that moves very quickly with the solar wind.

If Earth is on its path, the particles interact with molecules in our magnetic field and atmosphere, causing a beautiful glow in the sky.

Three CMEs were conducted in the last two days. According to SWPC, two will take a look at Earth, while the third, which occurred on Wednesday, is directed toward Earth.

Gusts of light may be responsible for the sightings of the northern lights, also known as the Aurora Borealis as far south as Minnesota On Wednesday night.

The SWPC is calling for a G3 geomagnetic storm, which is considered strong on a scale of G1 to G5.

As always, there’s a caveat: These storms are difficult to predict.

“There is a high degree of confidence in the Earth-directed aspect of this CME and a moderate level of confidence in the CME’s arrival time – which we estimate to be in the range from Thursday evening to Friday morning (Eastern Time),” SWPC wrote yesterday.

“However, as with these events, we have less confidence in the intensity of the resulting geomagnetic storm upon final CME arrival and passage. So, this represents our prediction based on the G3 Watch capability. ,

So, how strong it can be is not known.

The second issue is that there is a full moon, which will extinguish any faint northern lights. But there is still a possibility, as they appeared on Wednesday when the Moon was in a similar phase.

The most important part is that you arrive at a location with a good view of the northern horizon.

And, once again, remember that keeping things in line is essential for good performance :TThe solar wind must be very strong, and the auroral hole – along which the particles travel – must be tilted to the south. The further south it is, the farther south they will appear.

You can see if the aurora is visible in your location using apps like aurora alertAnd my aurora forecast,