A CME released on June 28 is due to impact Earth sometime today. It's possible that this CME could sweep up a slower CME released the day prior, on June 27, according to the U.K. Met Office. The resulting solar storm could disrupt Earth's magnetic field, which in turn can lead to geomagnetic storms and striking auroras.

Space weather forecasters from NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center (NOAA SWPC) and the U.K. Met Office predict a chance of minor (G1) geomagnetic storms tonight as geomagnetic activity remains unsettled to active. That means there's a window of opportunity for aurora sightings at northern latitudes, weather and dark skies permitting.

Where are the northern lights visible tonight?

Based on the latest NOAA forecast, we've listed 13 U.S. states that appear with fully or partially above the aurora view line. They are ordered from most likely to least likely to catch the northern lights based on their proximity to the auroral oval's center and how much of each state is within or near the view line.

States that could see the northern lights tonight

1. Alaska
2. Montana
3. North Dakota
4. Minnesota
5. South Dakota
6. Michigan (Upper Peninsula)
7. Wisconsin
8. Maine
9. Vermont
10. New Hampshire
11. Idaho
12. Washington
13. New York

But remember, auroras are fickle; sometimes they appear much farther south than predicted, and other times they barely show up at all. Many conditions have to align for the perfect display.

Northern Hemisphere aurora forecast courtesy of the Met Office

How can I see the northern lights from where I live?

If you live in one of the 13 U.S. states forecast to potentially catch a glimpse of the northern lights tonight, there are a few things you can do to give yourself the best chance of seeing them.

Firstly, find a north-facing vantage point with a clear view of the horizon, as far away from light pollution as possible. The best time to look for the northern lights will be around 2 a.m. local time due to the limited hours of darkness in the summer months.

We recommend downloading a space weather app that provides aurora forecasts based on your location. One option I use is "My Aurora Forecast & Alerts," available for both iOS and Android. However, any similar app should work well. I also use the "Space Weather Live" app, which is available on iOS and Android, to get a deeper understanding of whether the current space weather conditions are favorable for aurora sightings.

A colossal coronal hole on the sun has rotated to face Earth and is currently sending a stream of high-speed solar wind our way. As the solar wind slams into our planet's magnetic field, it disrupts geomagnetic conditions, which in turn can lead to geomagnetic storms and vivid auroras.

Space weather forecasters from the U.K. Met Office and NOAA's SWPC predict there is a chance of minor (G1) geomagnetic storms tonight as geomagnetic activity remains mainly unsettled to active. That means there's a window of opportunity for aurora sightings at northern latitudes, weather and darkness permitting.

Where are the northern lights visible tonight?

Based on the latest NOAA forecast, we've listed 10 U.S. states that appear either fully or partially above the aurora view line — ordered from most likely to least likely to catch the lights, based on how much of each state lies within the auroral oval.

States that could see auroras tonight:

• Alaska
• Montana
• North Dakota
• Minnesota
• South Dakota
• Michigan (Upper Peninsula)
• Wisconsin
• Maine
• Idaho
• Washington

Remember, auroras can be fickle. Sometimes they can appear much farther south than predicted, and other times they barely show up at all. There are many conditions that have to align for the perfect show. It is possible that many more states could witness auroras tonight, or perhaps far fewer will.

Northern Hemisphere aurora forecast courtesy of the Met Office

How can I see the northern lights from where I live?

If you're in one of the states listed above, your best bet is to head to a north-facing location, far away from city lights. With summer daylight hanging on late, around 1 a.m. local time is typically your best shot.

Try using your smartphone camera to scan the sky — it often picks up faint auroras your eyes might miss. Once your camera catches a hint of green or purple, focus your attention there. That said, don't forget to glance around — auroras can pop up in front, behind, or right overhead.

If you want to make sure you're all clued up on when to look for auroras, download a space weather app that provides forecasts based on your location. One option I use is "My Aurora Forecast & Alerts," available for both iOS and Android. However, any similar app should work well. I also use the "Space Weather Live" app, which is available on iOS and Android, to get a deeper understanding of whether the current space weather conditions are favorable for aurora sightings.

According to NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC), the Kp index — a measure of geomagnetic activity — is forecast to peak at 5.67, qualifying as a moderate G2 storm. (Kp is a measurement of geomagnetic activity, with an index that ranges from 0 to 9; higher Kp indicates stronger auroral activity.) These conditions could push the auroral oval far enough south to be glimpsed on the northern horizon in states like New York, Oregon, and South Dakota, especially from dark-sky locations with minimal light pollution.

You can keep up with the latest forecasts and geomagnetic storm warnings with our aurora forecast live blog.

The UK Met Office adds that while solar activity remains relatively low, "a fast wind is expected to arrive" late June 25, significantly increasing the chance of auroras at high latitudes. However, being near the June solstice means short nights and lingering twilight may hamper viewing in some areas.

Where can I see the northern lights tonight

In the U.S., Alaska has the highest chance of seeing the northern lights tonight. If predicted G2 storms are reached, auroras could be visible down to New York and Idaho and perhaps even further, according to NOAA.

Below we have listed 14 states that appear either fully or in part above the possible view line for auroras tonight, according to NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center. They are ordered most likely to least likely based on their proximity to the center of the auroral oval and how much of each state is within or near the view line.

States that could see auroras tonight

1. Alaska
2. Minnesota
3. North Dakota
4. Montana
5. Maine
6. Michigan
7. Wisconsin
8. Vermont
9. New Hampshire
10. Washington
11. Oregon
12. Idaho
13. New York
14. South Dakota

Remember, auroras can be fickle. Sometimes they can appear much farther south than predicted, and other times they barely show up at all. There are many conditions that have to align for the perfect show. It is possible that many more states could witness auroras tonight, or perhaps far fewer will.

Good luck aurora chasers!

Northern Hemisphere aurora forecast courtesy of the Met Office

How can I see the northern lights from where I live?

If you live in one of the 14 states forecasted to have a chance of seeing the northern lights tonight, head to a north-facing vantage point as far away from light pollution as possible! The best time to look for auroras will be about 1 a.m. local time, as our window of darkness for observing the northern lights shrinks during summer months.

A succession of powerful solar eruptions in early May last year triggered the most powerful solar storm to hit Earth in 20 years. Later named after the deceased space weather scientist Jennifer Gannon, the solar storm produced awe-inspiring auroras visible as far south as Mexico, Portugal and Spain. It also made GPS go haywire for days.

Farmers in the American Midwest, at that time at the peak of the planting season, reported their GPS-guided tractors acting like they were "possessed" during the storm, according to accounts. A new study has now quantified how big those GPS errors were not only during the height of the storm, but also in its aftermath when a lingering aurora continued to skew GPS signals.

A team of researchers from Boston University used data from close to 100 high-accuracy, fixed GPS receivers scattered across the U.S. that form a seismic research network that measures the motions of tectonic plates. As it turns out, the network is also perfectly suited to study space weather effects in Earth's ionosphere, a layer of electrically-charged air found 30 miles (48 kilometers) above Earth. The effects that solar storms have on the ionosphere can affect the readings of GPS receivers.

"GPS receivers work with the assumption that the ionosphere has a uniform plasma density," Waqar Younas, a space physics researcher at Boston University and lead author of the paper, told Space.com. "But a solar storm creates irregularities in the ionosphere and as the signal passes through the ionospheric layers, it grows errors."

When a solar storm hits, the charged solar particles it brings with it heat up and disturb the ionosphere. As the weak signals from the global positioning satellites pass through this suddenly turbulent region, they get thrown off course.

Because the fixed GPS receivers in the research network are firmly attached to the ground, any change in their positioning data could only be a result of turbulence in the ionosphere. Measurements from this scientific GPS network revealed the scale of these errors with great accuracy, and enabled researchers to reconstruct what had gone on in the ionosphere during the storm.

"By measuring the disturbance of the signal, we can tell the structure of the plasma in the upper atmosphere," Toshi Nishimura, a professor of space physics and co-author of the new study, told Spapce.com.

Analysis of the data revealed that the storm created a "wall of ionospheric plasma," stretching across the North American continent. This wall threw off GPS signals by up to 230 feet (70 meters) in central U.S. states, with smaller errors of up to 65 feet (20 m) reported in the southwestern parts of the country.

The peak disruption lasted for about six hours on May 10, 2024, but things remained unsettled for up to two days, the study showed. After the shaken ionosphere began to calm down, the auroral lights triggered by the storm caused further GPS disruptions as charged particles from space trickled through the atmosphere along disrupted magnetic field lines. The GPS receiver network showed errors up to 30 feet (10 m) for the duration of these auroras.

The erratic behavior of GPS-guided farming machinery caused by the Gannon solar storm cost American farmers in the U.S. midwest more than $500 million, according to Terry Griffin, a professor of agricultural economics at Kansas State University.

"Because of the Gannon storm, planting of corn got delayed because our planters were mostly inoperative," Griffin told Space.com. "Currently, about 70% of planted acres in the United States rely on equipment that uses GPS automated guidance to make straight parallel lines through the field. We no longer even have physical road markers, and the equipment is getting bigger to the point that we can no longer operate when the GPS is taken away."

But agriculture was not the sole victim of the space weather-induced GPS mayhem. Aircraft rely on GPS not only to follow their paths but especially to know their precise altitude during landing. Errors of up to four meters can be compensated for, according to Nishimura. But the disruption on May 10 and 11 last year was "way beyond that tolerance window," Nishimura said.

The Gannon solar storm may have been the strongest in two decades. But it only provided only a weak taste of what the sun is capable of. The frequently discussed worst case scenario is the so-called Carrington event — a storm that hit Earth in 1859, knocking out telegraph services all over the world. A storm of that strength today would no doubt have wide-ranging consequences around the world.

"During the Gannon storm, we saw the most intense impact in the central regions of the U.S.," Nishimura said. "But for a Carrington-sized event, we would see disruption all over the continent and errors so large that the signal would be unusable."

Waqar says that in the future, real-time forecasting of ionospheric disruptions paired with AI-driven forecasts of GPS signal irregularities could help correct the errors as a storm progresses.

The study was published in the journal JGR-Space Physics on June 9.

A coronal mass ejection (CME) released during a relatively small C5.5 solar flare on June 17 may deliver a glancing blow to Earth sometime tonight. This, combined with fast solar wind streaming from a large Earth-facing coronal hole, could fuel geomagnetic storm conditions overnight, according to NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC).

Space weather forecasters at SWPC predict a chance of minor G1 geomagnetic storm conditions (Kp 5) between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m. EDT (0600–0900 GMT) on June 20. (Kp is a measurement of geomagnetic activity, with an index that ranges from 0 to 9; higher Kp indicates stronger auroral activity.) You can keep up with the latest forecasts and geomagnetic storm warnings with our aurora forecast live blog.

Where can I see the northern lights tonight?

In the U.S., Alaska has the highest chance of seeing the northern lights tonight. If predicted G1 storms are reached, auroras could be visible down to Michigan and Maine, and perhaps even further according to NOAA.

Below we have listed 9 states that appear either fully or in part above the possible view line for auroras tonight, according to NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center. They are ordered most likely to least likely based on their proximity to the center of the auroral oval and how much of each state is within or near the view line.

States like Connecticut, Rhode Island, Nebraska, Iowa and Illinois are very close to the possible view line but would require stronger geomagnetic activity than forecast for visibility. That being said, geomagnetic storms have surprised us in the past, whereby forecasted G1 conditions jump to G2 or even G3. So it's worth keeping your eyes on the skies and those aurora alerts switched on.

Remember, auroras can be fickle. Sometimes they can appear much farther south than predicted, and other times they barely show up at all. There are many conditions that have to align for the perfect show. It is possible that many more states could witness auroras tonight, or perhaps far fewer will.

States that could see auroras tonight

1. Alaska
2. Montana
3. North Dakota
4. Minnesota
5. Wisconsin
6. Michigan (especially the Upper Peninsula)
7. Maine
8. Vermont
9. New Hampshire

Northern Hemisphere aurora forecast courtesy of the Met Office

How can I see the northern lights from where I live?

If you live in one of the 9 states forecasted to have a chance of seeing the northern lights tonight, head to a north-facing vantage point as far away from light pollution as possible! The best time to look for auroras will be about 1 a.m. local time, as our window of darkness for observing the northern lights shrinks during summer months.

Use your mobile phone to scan the skies, as the camera is great at picking up faint auroras before your eyes spot them. This can help you pinpoint where in the sky you should be focusing your attention. But remember to keep an eye out elsewhere too as auroras can pop up in front, behind or even above you! Happy aurora hunting.

If you want to make sure you're all clued up on when to look for auroras, download a space weather app that provides forecasts based on your location. One option I use is "My Aurora Forecast & Alerts," available for both iOS and Android. However, any similar app should work well. I also use the "Space Weather Live" app, which is available on iOS and Android, to get a deeper understanding of whether the current space weather conditions are favorable for aurora sightings.

Nature served up a stunning double feature in the skies over Alberta, Canada, on June 9.

Aurora chaser and photographer Harlan Thomas (@TheAuroraGuy) was about 18.5 miles (30 kilometers) north of Calgary along a rural stretch he calls "The Twisted Pond Road" when the surprise display of both the northern lights and noctilucent clouds (NLCs) took to the sky.

"It was quite the surprise to see the aurora, as there was really no data to justify the geomagnetic conditions," Thomas told Space.com in an email. "It was even more surprising to see the NLCs, as they had to overcome wildfire smoke from the Northwest and a waxing gibbous moon that was 84% full."

NLCs are Earth's highest clouds, appearing as thin wispy blue or silver streaks about 47 to 53 miles (76 to 85 km) above the planet's surface. They form in summer when water vapor drifts into the mesosphere and crystallizes around meteoric dust. Their delicate glow is often visible from high latitudes shortly after sunset or before sunrise.

"There's nothing quite like seeing the aurora borealis and noctilucent clouds at the same time," Thomas told spaceweather.com. "It's the perfect combination."

Thomas captured the scene using a Nikon D810 camera with a 50mm lens, shooting 1/30-second exposures at ISO 3200 with one-second intervals to create both a timelapse and a still image.

Surprisingly, this wasn't the first time Thomas had witnessed such a spectacle. In 2020, he not only captured NLCs and aurora but also a comet!

"On July 14, 2020, at the height of Covid, I captured the NLC's, Neowise [comet] and the aurora," Thomas told Space.com.

Talk about being in the right place at the right time!

The NLC season typically lasts through August, so skywatchers in northern latitudes may yet catch their own glimpse of this dazzling duo.

Want to brush up on your astrophotography skills? Our guide to astrophotography for beginners covers everything from equipment to shooting modes and more. Our best cameras for astrophotography and best lenses for astrophotography can also help you prepare to capture your next skywatching sight.

Editor's Note: If you snap a stunning astrophoto and would like to share it with Space.com's readers, send your photo(s), comments, and your name and location to spacephotos@space.com.

Earth is currently reverberating from a solar storm impact that occurred overnight on June 12-13, during which moderate G2 geomagnetic storm levels were reached. A co-rotating interaction region (CIR) — a turbulent region in the solar wind in which fast-moving streams collide with slower wind ahead of them — is also on the way, with the effects expected around June 14.

NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) has issued a moderate (G2) geomagnetic storm watch for June 14 due to the incoming solar wind from a large Earth-facing coronal hole. The U.K. Met Office echoes this forecast, predicting moderate (G2) geomagnetic storms on June 13-14, with activity expected to decline to unsettled levels by June 15-16.

What does this mean?

A G2 storm can shift the aurora oval — the ring-shaped zone where auroras typically form — farther south, allowing skywatchers across parts of the northern U.S. a chance to catch a glimpse of the elusive lights, weather and dark skies permitting. Geomagnetic storms are ranked using a G-scale, which ranges from G1 (minor) to G5 (extreme).

States that could see auroras tonight

Below, we have listed 18 states that appear either fully or in part above the possible view line for auroras tonight, according to NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center. They're ordered from most likely to least likely based on their proximity to the center of the auroral oval and how much of each state is within or near the view line.

Keep in mind, auroras are fickle. Sometimes they show up much farther south than expected and other times they don't appear at all. Many conditions have to align for the perfect display.

1. Alaska
2. Montana
3. North Dakota
4. Minnesota
5. Wisconsin
6. Michigan
7. South Dakota
8. Maine
9. Vermont
10. New Hampshire
11. Idaho
12. Washington
13. Oregon
14. New York
15. Massachusetts
16. Connecticut
17. Rhode Island
18. Wyoming

Viewing conditions also depend on more than just geomagnetic activity. Cloud cover, light pollution, and the brief summer night can all affect visibility.

Northern Hemisphere aurora forecast courtesy of the Met Office

How can I see the northern lights from where I live?

If you find yourself in one of the 18 states listed above (or simply want to try your luck) head to a dark, north-facing spot away from city lights. As we approach the summer solstice on June 20/21, nights are growing shorter, so your best window for viewing may be in the early morning hours, around 1 to 2 a.m.

Interested in tracking space weather and knowing when and where to spot auroras? Download a space weather app that provides forecasts based on your location. One option I use is "My Aurora Forecast & Alerts," available for both iOS and Android. However, any similar app should work well. I also use the "Space Weather Live" app, which is available on iOS and Android, to get a deeper understanding of whether the current space weather conditions are favorable for aurora sightings.

Editor's note: If you snap a great picture of the northern or southern lights and would like to share it with Space.com's readers, send your photo(s), comments, and your name and location to spacephotos@space.com.

That's good news for aurora chasers! The predicted G2-level storm could bring northern lights as far south as New York and Idaho, provided conditions align. However, with the northern hemisphere nearing the summer solstice on June 20-21, extended daylight hours mean less time for aurora viewing, making sightings more challenging.

The spike in geomagnetic activity is driven primarily by a co-rotating interaction region (CIR) — a turbulent region in the solar wind in which fast-moving streams collide with slower wind ahead of them. CIRs can generate shock waves similar to those produced by coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and are capable of triggering geomagnetic storms and amplifying space weather effects.

The incoming CIR originated from a colossal coronal hole now turning to face Earth. Coronal holes are regions where the sun's magnetic field opens up, allowing high-speed solar wind to readily escape into space. They appear darker in ultraviolet images because they are cooler and less dense than the surrounding regions, lacking the hot glowing gases normally trapped by magnetic fields.

NOAA's SWPC forecasts the Kp index — a scale from 0 to 9 that measures global geomagnetic activity — to peak at 5.67 on June 14. Higher values indicate stronger geomagnetic storms and increase the chances of seeing auroras at lower latitudes.

For the latest aurora forecasts and timing updates, check NOAA's 3-day space weather outlook.

Keep up to date with the latest space weather news with our aurora forecast live blog. For real-time forecasts based on your location, consider using a space weather app. A great option is "My Aurora Forecast & Alerts" (available for iOS and Android). For a deeper dive into space weather conditions, "Space Weather Live" is another excellent choice (available for iOS and Android)

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) says Earth could receive a glancing blow from the CME by mid to late June 7 (UTC), while the UK Met Office places the arrival time slightly earlier, on Friday night (UTC).

If the CME arrives, it's expected to stir up geomagnetic activity. Both NOAA SPWPC and the U.K. Met Office predict minor (G1) geomagnetic storm conditions but there's potential for isolated moderate (G2) storms if the CME combines with the ongoing high-speed solar wind from an Earth-facing coronal hole.

Geomagnetic storms occur when charged particles from the sun interact with Earth's magnetosphere, potentially causing disruptions in satellite communications, power grid fluctuations, and — most excitingly — enhanced auroral activity. During G1 conditions, auroras can be visible across high latitudes, including Michigan and Maine. But if G2 conditions are reached, auroras could stretch as far south as New York and Idaho.

What Is the Kp Index?

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 4.67 on June 7. For the latest breakdown, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

The Kp index is a scale from 0 to 9 that measures geomagnetic activity — the higher the number, the stronger the disturbance. Aurora visibility typically increases with higher Kp values, extending farther south from the poles.

Aurora alerts

To stay updated on aurora activity, consider using a space weather app that provides real-time forecasts based on your location. A great option is "My Aurora Forecast & Alerts" (available for iOS and Android). For a deeper dive into space weather conditions, "Space Weather Live" is another excellent choice (available for iOS and Android)

Check out our aurora live updates blog for the latest northern lights forecasts and alerts.

Earth is still reverberating from not one but two coronal mass ejections (CMEs) that hit in the early hours of June 1 and late June 2, wreaking havoc on our magnetic field and triggering incredible auroras around the world.

Space weather forecasters from the U.K. Met Office predict there is still a slight chance of further strong (G3) geomagnetic storms, with minor (G1) and moderate (G2) intervals expected.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center predicts that the Kp index will peak at 4.67 over the next 24 hours. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast. (Kp is a measurement of geomagnetic activity, with an index that ranges from 0 to 9; higher Kp indicates stronger auroral activity.)

You can also keep up with the latest forecasts and geomagnetic storm warnings with our aurora forecast live blog.

Where can I see the northern lights tonight?

In the U.S., Alaska has the highest chance of seeing the northern lights tonight. If predicted G3 storms are reached, auroras could be visible down to Illinois and Oregon, according to NOAA, though the chance for more G3 storms is slim.

Below we have listed all 13 states that appear either fully or in part above the possible view line for auroras tonight, according to NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center. They are ordered most likely to least likely based on their proximity to the center of the auroral oval and how much of each state is within or near the view line.

Remember, auroras can be fickle. Sometimes they can appear much farther south than predicted, and other times they barely show up at all. There are many conditions that have to align for the perfect show. It is possible that many more states could witness auroras tonight, or perhaps far fewer will.

States that could see auroras tonight

1. Alaska
2. Minnesota
3. North Dakota
4. Montana
5. Wisconsin
6. Michigan (Upper Peninsula)
7. South Dakota
8. Maine
9. Vermont
10. New Hampshire
11. Idaho
12. Washington
13. Oregon

Northern Hemisphere aurora forecast courtesy of the Met Office

How can I see the northern lights from where I live?

If you live in one of the 13 states forecasted to have a chance of seeing the northern lights tonight, head to a north-facing vantage point as far away from light pollution as possible! The best time to look for auroras will be about 1 a.m. local time, as our window of darkness for observing the northern lights shrinks during summer months.

Use your mobile phone to scan the skies, as the camera is great at picking up faint auroras before your eyes spot them. This can help you pinpoint where in the sky you should be focusing your attention. But remember to keep an eye out elsewhere too as auroras can pop up in front, behind or even above you! Happy aurora hunting.

If you want to make sure you're all clued up on when to look for auroras download a space weather app that provides forecasts based on your location. One option I use is "My Aurora Forecast & Alerts," available for both iOS and Android. However, any similar app should work well. I also use the "Space Weather Live" app, which is available on iOS and Android, to get a deeper understanding of whether the current space weather conditions are favorable for aurora sightings.

Waves of ionized gas glowing yellow, white and magenta filled the sky in New Zealand, as spectators take photos and witness the "southern lights" spectacle.

What is it?

Aurora Australis, or the "southern lights," occurs when particles ejected from the sun interact with Earth's atmosphere in the Southern Hemisphere (in the Northern Hemisphere, the phenomenon is called aurora borealis or the northern lights).

In this case, a strong geomagnetic storm, stemming from a coronal mass ejection (CME) impact on June 1, resulted in this sky show. The yellow, white and magenta hues are set off by the different types of gas molecules. For example, nitrogen particles set off the magenta or purple-red waves as seen in this photo.

Where is it?

The photo was taken near Lake Ellesmere in Lincoln, New Zealand, near Christchurch.

Why is it amazing?

This particular light show was not confined to New Zealand or the southern hemisphere. The strong geomagnetic storm behind the aurora affected areas across the globe, including in the Northern Hemisphere as far south as New Mexico and California.

Geomagnetic storms are ranked in strength on a 1 to 5 scale. Sunday's (June 1, 2025) storm was categorized a G4.

Want to learn more?

You can read more about aurora and the storm that resulted in this photo.

The northern lights could put on yet another impressive show tonight (June 2) as ongoing geomagnetic storm conditions continue to push auroras farther south than usual, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Earth is still feeling the effects of a speedy coronal mass ejection (CME) impact that hit our planet in the early hours of June 1, disturbing our magnetic field and triggering incredible auroras around the world.

Space weather forecasters from the U.K. Met Office predict there is a chance of strong (G3) geomagnetic storm conditions tonight, with minor (G1) intervals expected.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center predicts that the Kp index will peak at 6.67 over the next 24 hours. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast. (Kp is a measurement of geomagnetic activity, with an index that ranges from 0 to 9; higher Kp indicates stronger auroral activity.)

Will the current conditions hold until it gets dark? Only time will tell. In the meantime, get those cameras charged, aurora alerts switched on and those fingers crossed! You can also keep up with the latest forecasts and geomagnetic storm warnings with our aurora forecast live blog.

Where can I see the northern lights tonight?

In the U.S., Alaska has the highest chance of seeing the northern lights tonight. If predicted G3 storms are reached, auroras could be visible down to Illinois and Oregon, according to NOAA.

Below we have listed all 15 states that appear either fully or in part above the possible view line for auroras tonight, according to NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center. They are ordered most likely to least likely based on their proximity to the center of the auroral oval and how much of each state is within or near the view line.

Remember, auroras can be fickle. Sometimes they can appear much farther south than predicted, and other times they barely show up at all. There are many conditions that have to align for the perfect show.

1. Alaska
2. Montana
3. North Dakota
4. Minnesota
5. Wisconsin
6. Michigan
7. Maine
8. Vermont
9. New Hampshire
10. New York
11. South Dakota
12. Idaho
13. Washington
14. Oregon
15. Massachusetts

Northern Hemisphere aurora forecast courtesy of the Met Office

How can I see the northern lights from where I live?

If you're one of the lucky skywatchers in one of the 15 states forecasted to have a chance of seeing the northern lights tonight, head to a north-facing vantage point as far away from light pollution as possible! The best time to look for auroras will be about 1 a.m. local time, as our window of darkness for observing the northern lights shrinks during summer months.

Use your mobile phone to scan the skies, as the camera is great at picking up faint auroras before your eyes spot them. This can help you pinpoint where in the sky you should be focusing your attention. But remember to keep an eye out elsewhere too as auroras can pop up in front, behind or even above you! Happy aurora hunting.

If you want to make sure you're all clued up on when to look for auroras download a space weather app that provides forecasts based on your location. One option I use is "My Aurora Forecast & Alerts," available for both iOS and Android. However, any similar app should work well. I also use the "Space Weather Live" app, which is available on iOS and Android, to get a deeper understanding of whether the current space weather conditions are favorable for aurora sightings.

Editor's note: If you snap a great picture of the northern or southern lights and would like to share it with Space.com's readers, send your photo(s), comments, and your name and location to spacephotos@space.com.

Northern lights could put on an impressive show tonight (June 1) as ongoing geomagnetic storm conditions may push auroras farther south than usual, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Earth is currently reverberating from a speedy coronal mass ejection (CME) impact that struck in the early hours of June 1, wreaking havoc on our planet's magnetic field — great news for anyone hoping to see the northern lights.

Space weather forecasters from the U.K. Met Office predict frequent G1 to G2 level storming and occasional G3 and even G4 level storm intervals possible June 1-2.

Read more: Aurora alert: Ongoing powerful geomagnetic storm could spark more northern lights across the US tonight

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center predicts that the Kp index will peak at 7.67 over the next 24 hours. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast. (Kp is a measurement of geomagnetic activity, with an index that ranges from 0 to 9; higher Kp indicates stronger auroral activity.)

Aurora chasers, get those cameras charged, fingers crossed and your eyes firmly fixed on the skies! You can also keep up with the latest forecasts and geomagnetic storm warnings with our aurora forecast live blog.

Where can I see the northern lights tonight?

Alaska has the highest chance of seeing the northern lights tonight. If G3 or even G4 storm levels are reached, auroras could be visible at high-latitude states, including Michigan and Maine, according to NOAA.

Below, we have listed all 23 states that appear either fully or in part above the possible view line for auroras tonight according to NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center. They are ordered most likely to least likely based on their proximity to the auroral oval's center and how much of each state is within or near the view line.

But remember, auroras are fickle — sometimes they appear much farther south than predicted, and other times they barely show up at all. Many conditions have to align for the perfect display.

States that could see auroras tonight

1. Alaska
2. Montana
3. North Dakota
4. Minnesota
5. Wisconsin
6. Michigan
7. South Dakota
8. Vermont
9. New Hampshire
10. Maine
11. Idaho
12. Washington
13. Oregon
14. New York
15. Massachusetts
16. Connecticut
17. Rhode Island
18. Nebraska
19. Iowa
20. Wyoming
21. Illinois
22. Indiana
23. Pennsylvania

Northern Hemisphere aurora forecast courtesy of the Met Office

How can I see the northern lights from where I live?

If you find yourself in one of the 23 states forecasted to have a chance of seeing the northern lights tonight, head to a north-facing vantage point as far away from light pollution as possible. But as we approach the summer solstice on June 20/21, the window of darkness for observing northern lights is shrinking; the early morning hours around 1 and 2 a.m. might be the best time to try and see the northern lights.

Interested in tracking space weather and knowing when and where to spot auroras? Download a space weather app that provides forecasts based on your location. One option I use is "My Aurora Forecast & Alerts," available for both iOS and Android. However, any similar app should work well. I also use the "Space Weather Live" app, which is available on iOS and Android, to get a deeper understanding of whether the current space weather conditions are favorable for aurora sightings.

Editor's note: If you snap a great picture of the northern or southern lights and would like to share it with Space.com's readers, send your photo(s), comments, and your name and location to spacephotos@space.com.

If you missed last night's severe G4 geomagnetic storm last night or just can’t get enough of the northern lights, stay alert: geomagnetic storm conditions are expected to continue, so keep your eyes on the skies and your aurora alerts switched on.

Active geomagnetic storm conditions may persist into early June 2, according to NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center, as Earth's magnetic field reverberates from the coronal mass ejection (CME) impact in the early hours of June 1. It is also being buffeted by high-speed solar wind from coronal holes and another CME could strike late on June 2.

The speedy solar storm that struck Earth on June 1 was travelling around 1,938 km/s or 4.3 million mph. It's complex and made up of material from multiple CMEs, so we could continue to feel the effects of this impact for another 24 hours.

"We just entered what looks to be the "core" of the first structure," space weather physicist Tamitha Skov told Space.com. "Considering this storm is comprised of material from multiple CMEs all compressed into one composite structure, there is a chance we will see more than one "core" signature. So, there is a chance this could still give us a waning show 24 hours from now."

And that's not all! We have another, albeit smaller, CME heading toward Earth, which could stir up geomagnetic activity again around June 2 or June 3.

"This storm is expected to arrive late on June 2, so we could see storming through June 3 UTC time," Skov told Space.com. "That being said, expect the aurora chances to be weaker than they are now. Likely, we will only be at a G1-G2 level storm by midday June 3."

If G2 levels are reached, we could see auroras stretch as far south as New York and Idaho (typically 55° geomagnetic lat.)

How do CMEs cause geomagnetic storms and auroras?

CMEs carry electrically charged atoms, known as ions. When these ions collide with Earth's magnetosphere, they can trigger geomagnetic storms — major disturbances in Earth's magnetosphere. During such storms, the ions interact with gases in Earth's atmosphere, releasing energy in the form of light. This light is observed as the northern lights, or aurora borealis, in the Northern Hemisphere, and the southern lights, or aurora australis, in the Southern Hemisphere. Geomagnetic storms are classified using a G-scale that measures their intensity, ranging from G1 for minor storms to G5, the most extreme.

Editor's note: If you snap a great picture of the northern or southern lights and would like to share it with Space.com's readers, send your photo(s), comments, and your name and location to spacephotos@space.com.

Our planet is currently reverberating from the impact of a powerful coronal mass ejection (CME) that struck Earth head-on in the early hours of June 1 — and the resulting auroras were absolutely stunning.

The CME erupted during an M8.2 class solar flare eruption on May 30 at 8:05 p.m. EDT (00:05 GMT on May 31) and has been racing toward Earth at nearly 1,938 km/s or 4.3 million mph. When it slammed into Earth's magnetic field, the impact triggered a severe (G4) geomagnetic storm, which in turn led to striking auroras deep into mid-latitudes.

CMEs carry electrically charged atoms, known as ions. When these ions collide with Earth's magnetosphere, they can trigger geomagnetic storms — major disturbances in Earth's magnetosphere. During such storms, the ions interact with gases in Earth's atmosphere, releasing energy in the form of light. This light is observed as the northern lights, or aurora borealis, in the Northern Hemisphere, and the southern lights, or aurora australis, in the Southern Hemisphere. Geomagnetic storms are classified using a G-scale that measures their intensity, ranging from G1 for minor storms to G5, the most extreme.

The severe geomagnetic storm conditions reached last night were relished by aurora chasers in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres (those who were still awake anyway). It's likely that the active geomagnetic storm conditions will continue for some time, which is good news for those in Europe, where the sun was already up when this G4 storm began.

"G4 storm conditions reached! We are still in the early part of the CME and the ongoing geomagnetic storm, more to come. 12 hours to go for Europe," aurora chaser Jure Atanackov wrote in a post on X.

While we wait to see what's in store for tonight, let's first sit back, relax and enjoy the stunning show from last night captured by avid aurora chasers around the world.

Terry Griffin captured some beautiful aurora pillars during the geomagnetic storm with his Samsung S24 Ultra.

"The white pillars stood out to the naked eye more so than the colors," Griffin told Space.com in an email.

Griffin captured this impressive photograph at 2:39 a.m. local time from St. George, Kansas, U.S.

"Sat the phone on the ground and tilted it up. Easy peasy," Griffin continued.

Astronomer and astrophotographer Yuri Beletsky had one of the best seats in the house during a flight from Melbourne to Santiago.

"The sky was alive with soft splashes of light," Beletsky wrote in a post on X.

Aurora chaser Brendon captured some fabulous shots of the aurora from the North side of Cheyenne, Wyoming.

"Ok, so that was a show," Brendon wrote in a post on X.

Aurora photographer Derick Wilson captured a stunning hyper-lapse of the northern lights dancing over Farmington, New Mexico, at 2:15 a.m. local time.

"Visible aurora this far south is such a rare occurrence I knew to keep an eye on the solarwind data," Wilson told Space.com in an email. "When the expected solarstorm arrived early I knew I had to get far from city lights. And it's amazing what cell phone cameras can capture these days."

"Discreet rays occasionally drifted eastward but went diffuse and faded.... For now," Wilson wrote in a post on X.

The thick smoke from wildfires was no match for the northern lights above Minnesota, U.S.

"Smokey auroras tonight in Northern Minnesota. It was strong enough for the aurora to completely visible to naked eye. As well tint of red color to the naked eye," Gabe Zogo wrote in a post on X.

Robert Erickson saw a stunning northern lights show over Pyramid Lake, just north of Reno Nevada, U.S.

Meanwhile, aurora chaser and photographer Noel Bowman captured this delightful scene unfolding above Seabeck, Washington in the early hours of the morning on June 1.

Auroras were also spotted over San Diego, California, during the early phase of the solar storm.

"Nice catch! Confirmed #aurora visible on webcams as far south as San Diego, California, USA during the early phase of this ongoing #solarstorm," Space weather physicist Tamitha Skov wrote in a post on X.

Southern Hemisphere skywatchers also got quite the treat last night, with vibrant red and pink auroras documented above Queenstown, Tasmania.

Sai Shankar captured these stunning photographs from Kaikoura, New Zealand, around 9:35 p.m. local time (5:35 a.m. EDT or 0945 GMT).

"I saw similar Auroras in May and October of last year, from Banks Peninsula, near Christchurch. This is the first time I've imaged from further north - I happened to be in Kaikoura photographing whales in the morning," Shankar told Space.com in an email.

Amateur astronomer and photographer Paul Stewart captured a striking red aurora show above New Zealand.

"Bit of an #Aurora going on in New Zealand tonight," Stewart wrote in a post on X.

Photographer Mitch Young took these beautiful photographs of the southern lights above Metung, Victoria, Australia around 7:50 p.m. local time.

Young used 10s exposure on an iPhone 16 Pro Max to capture these shots.

Editor's note: If you snap a great picture of the northern or southern lights and would like to share it with Space.com's readers, send your photo(s), comments, and your name and location to spacephotos@space.com.

Heads up, aurora chasers! A powerful solar storm is on the way.

Space weather forecasters are warning of a strong (G3) geomagnetic storm, with a chance it could reach severe (G4) levels, thanks to a blast of solar material heading straight for Earth. That could mean vibrant northern lights illuminating the night sky as far south as Oregon, Illinois, and potentially even deeper into mid-latitudes like Alabama and northern California tonight.

The incoming coronal mass ejection (CME) — a vast plume of solar material — erupted from the sun in the early hours of May 31, it is currently hurtling towards us at astonishing speeds.

"Our sun finally aims for Earth!" Space Weather Physicist Tamitha Skov wrote in a post on X. But identifying the exact time of when the CME will hit is difficult as a slower solar storm in front might hold up the speedy solar storm behind.

"NASA model predictions show a very fast #solarstorm travelling near 1000 km/s that could hit Earth by midday June 1. A slower storm ahead might cause a slight traffic delay, but G4-levels by June 2 are possible," Skov continues.

Geomagnetic storms are classified using a G-scale, which ranks their intensity from G1 (minor) to G5 (extreme). The recent geomagnetic storm watch that the U.K. Met Office Space Weather Operations Centre issued is rated a G4, indicating "severe" storm conditions. NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center has also issued a G4-level storm watch with the prediction that G4 levels could be reached on June 2, with strong G2 conditions still possible on June 3.

What is CME?

CMEs are large eruptions of plasma and magnetic field from the sun; when they collide with Earth's magnetic field, they can cause geomagnetic storms that trigger auroras, sometimes visible much farther south than usual. With this event, auroras may be visible deep into mid-latitudes, making it a must-watch for northern lights enthusiasts!

When will the northern lights be visible?

The current predictions show the CME to impact Earth in the early hours of June 1 (UTC), so make sure you keep your eyes on the skies as soon as it gets dark tonight! For the best chances of seeing the northern lights, head to a dark location with a good view of the northern horizon.

Get those camera batteries charged and those aurora alerts switched on!

The timing of the CME impacts can vary, so it's important to stay updated on space weather alerts that provide real-time forecasts based on your location. A great option is "My Aurora Forecast & Alerts" (available for iOS and Android). For a deeper dive into space weather conditions, "Space Weather Live" is another excellent choice (available for iOS and Android)

Northern lights could dazzle the skies over 20 U.S. States tonight (May 31) as active geomagnetic conditions may push auroras farther south than usual, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Earth is currently being buffeted by high-speed solar wind, which is putting pressure on our planet's magnetic field and fueling the storm — excellent news for anyone hoping to catch a glimpse of the northern lights.

Space weather forecasters are forecasting strong (G3) geomagnetic storm conditions with the possibility of severe (G4) conditions thanks to both elevated solar winds and an Earth-directed coronal mass ejection (CME). Just days ago, a surprise G3 storm on May 28 triggered auroras in 17 U.S. States and even as far south as Italy. That G3 storm had originally been forecast to only reach G1 levels.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center predicts that the Kp index will peak at 4.67 over the weekend. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast. (Kp is a measurement of geomagnetic activity, with an index that ranges from 0 to 9; higher Kp indicates stronger auroral activity.)

Aurora chasers, get your fingers crossed, your cameras charged and your eyes firmly fixed on the skies! You can also keep up with the latest forecasts and geomagnetic storm warnings with our aurora forecast live blog.

Where can I see the northern lights tonight?

Alaska has the highest chance of seeing the northern lights tonight and over the weekend. If G3 or even G4 storm levels are reached, auroras could be visible at high-latitude states, including Michigan and Maine, according to NOAA.

Below, we have listed all 20 states that appear either fully or in part above the possible view line for auroras according to NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center. They are ordered most likely to least likely based on their proximity to the auroral oval's center and how much of each state is within or near the view line.

But remember, auroras are fickle — sometimes they appear much farther south than predicted, and other times they barely show up at all. Many conditions have to align for the perfect display.

States that could see auroras tonight and over the weekend:

1. Alaska
2. Montana
3. North Dakota
4. Minnesota
5. Wisconsin
6. Michigan
7. South Dakota
8. Vermont
9. New Hampshire
10. Maine
11. Idaho
12. Washington
13. Oregon
14. New York
15. Massachusetts
16. Nebraska
17. Iowa
18. Wyoming
19. Illinois
20. Connecticut

Northern Hemisphere aurora forecast courtesy of the Met Office

How can I see the northern lights from where I live?

If you find yourself in one of the states forecasted to have a chance of seeing the northern lights tonight or over the weekend, head to a north-facing vantage point as far away from light pollution as possible. But as we approach the summer solstice on June 20/21, the window of darkness for observing northern lights is shrinking; the early morning hours around 1 and 2 a.m. might be the best time to try and see the northern lights.

Interested in tracking space weather and knowing when and where to spot auroras? Download a space weather app that provides forecasts based on your location. One option I use is "My Aurora Forecast & Alerts," available for both iOS and Android. However, any similar app should work well. I also use the "Space Weather Live" app, which is available on iOS and Android, to get a deeper understanding of whether the current space weather conditions are favorable for aurora sightings.

"Jenn was an outstanding role model, colleague, and scientist who excelled in creating a sense of community across the domains of space science," her colleagues wrote in a dedication posted online in the journal Space Weather. "She will be sorely missed by many."

Dr. Jennifer Lea Gannon passed away suddenly on May 2, 2024 in Greenbelt, Maryland at the age of 45, the dedication says, commending her commitment as an editor at Space Weather. In that position, Gannon guided more than 200 manuscripts toward publication and published many of her own editorials. She was also the longest-serving member of the board, having held her role since April 2019 after starting under the journal's previous editor-in-chief, Delores Knipp.

A talented artist and pianist, Gannon led the scientific community with her deep-running understanding of geomagnetically induced currents, ground-based magnetic field disturbances, radiation-belt electron dynamics and geomagnetic storms.

She received her B.S. in physics and computer science from the University of Virginia in 2000, and her Ph.D. in physics from the University of Colorado, Boulder in 2005. She had started as the Senior Space Weather Liaison at NOAA National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS)'s Office of Space Weather Observations a few months before she died.

"This awe-inspiring event is nature's way of rejoicing in the life of Dr. Jennifer Lea Gannon and sharing the profound knowledge of a Kp9 impact on our planet, just as she would have wanted," wrote NASA heliophysicist Madhulika Guhathakurta, who knew Gannon personally, in an online post. A Kp9 impact refers to the space weather scale, ranging from one to nine, with Kp9 being the strongest.

The geomagnetic storm that sent auroras ranging from Canada to the Netherlands in May 2024 was the first to reach Kp9 since 2003 — and this strength also played a part in it being the first of its kind to be named. These storms usually go by without informal monikers in part because most aren't significant enough to warrant naming. While the 1859 Carrington Event, thought to be the largest geomagnetic storm ever recorded, was technically the first ever named geomagnetic storm, Storm Gannon is the first to receive a name since scientists began classifying them.

For context, geomagnetic storms are caused by fiery eruptions from the sun's surface that send charged particles zipping toward our planet. Depending on the intensity and direction of the solar eruption, those particles can lead to powerful auroras taking shape at the polar regions of our planet. When this happens, we witness what we call the Northern and Southern Lights. But when a very (very) powerful storm occurs, auroras can appear at lower latitudes as well — and Storm Gannon was one of those special cases. Guhathakurta told Space.com that "one of the most severe storms in geomagnetic history" offered the space weather community the chance to connect to scientists and honor the memory of their colleague.

"The world lost Jenn on May 2, 2024, and a week later the skies lit up with a breathtaking display of auroras, reaching as far south as Ladakh, India," she wrote. "This felt more than just a natural phenomenon; it's nature's way of celebrating Jenn's legacy and the immense contributions she made to space weather research."

Storm Gannon became famous among the public as well as scientists because of the spectacular vistas generated across the Earth's surface, overwhelming social media websites with posts streaked with greens, reds and blues and even testing Mexico's electric grid on Mother's Day.

Geomagnetic storms are becoming more frequent because the sun is reaching its solar maximum, a period of heightened solar activity that happens every 23 years. Strong geomagnetic storms were observed in the 1980s and in 2003, but the prevalence of smartphones means photos of the Northern Lights appearing in unusual places can easily be snapped and uploaded to social media, making the phenomena appear a bit newer than it is.

The name "Storm Gannon" quickly found its way into the scientific literature, too. The White House later used the name in a press briefing discussing the importance of then-President Biden's space weather strategy. The name "Mother's Day Storm" also appeared, as it was called in Mexico, but quickly gave way in favor of the scientist who studied geomagnetic activity.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) decides the names of terrestrial storms, hurricanes and cyclones — restricting them to a formal list of 21 names that are usually only retired if a storm becomes particularly destructive. There's little convention on naming geomagnetic storms, but this instance could be the first of a new tradition led by Gannon’s colleagues.

"Jenn was a brilliant scientist and a beloved friend and colleague who dedicated her life to understanding geomagnetic storms and their impacts on Earth," wrote Guhathakurta in the dedication.

"She had an unparalleled passion for bridging the gap between scientific discovery and practical applications, and her mentorship inspired countless young scientists, especially women."

Update 5/30: NASA does not officially name geomagnetic storms; this article has been updated to reflect that.

At first glance, you could be mistaken for thinking it was a strange version of STEVE — a rare atmospheric phenomenon that can accompany the northern lights. But skywatchers quickly realized it was something entirely different.

The culprit? A Chinese rocket launch. Roughly an hour earlier, Chinese company Landscape launched its Zhuque-2E methane-fueled rocket from Site 96 at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center (JSLC) in China. It carried six satellites into orbit, including a radar spacecraft and a space science payload. When the upper stage reached about 155 miles (250 kilometers) in altitude, it carried out a "fuel dump" according to astronomer Jonathan McDowell, whereby the ejected fuel froze into a ribbon of crystals which then reflected sunlight back to Earth, appearing as a distinct white streak in the sky.

"The aurora was rippling low on the northern horizon when suddenly a bright streak of light, reminiscent of a rocket re-entry, appeared high in the sky and flowed down to the horizon," photographer Mike Lewinski told Spaceweather.com.

Lewinski captured the entire event unfolding alongside stunning auroras in the skies above Crestone, Colorado.

The moderate (G2 class) geomagnetic storm came as quite a surprise, kicking off early Friday (May 16) after Earth caught the glancing blow of a coronal mass ejection (CME). The CME was launched during a colossal filament eruption on May 12 from the sun's northern hemisphere. Initially expected to miss Earth, the "bird-wing" ejecta was wider than predicted, with some of the material striking Earth 4 days after it left the sun.

Aurora photographer Derick Wilson also captured the bright white streak above Farmington, New Mexico.

"The #aurora was visual but colorless... then the brightest sight I've ever seen in the night sky appeared overhead!" Wilson wrote in a post on X.

Photographer Tyler Schlitt captured the white plume from southern Kansas, U.S. Schlitt, like many, had originally thought STEVE had appeared. But soon learned it was something entirely different.

"Learning that it’s a rocket launch yet again from China is wild! One year ago and a few day I saw the same thing and was unsure but that one seem more of a rocket dump this one fell extremely close," Schlitt wrote in an X post comment.

It's not the first time a rocket launch has left skywatchers scratching their heads. SpaceX's Falcon 9 rockets, for instance, have created dazzling spiral patterns that swirl across the sky — strange sights that often spark confusion and awe, especially for first-time viewers who might mistake them for something truly otherworldly.

The first bits of data have come back from the trio of small satellites that make up NASA's EZIE (Electrojet Zeeman Imaging Explorer) mission, which aims to solve some mysteries surrounding the "auroral electrojet" phenomena in our atmosphere.

The "first light" observations are promising, and NASA says the EZIE satellites are "poised to reveal crucial details about Earth's auroral electrojets."

After launching March 14 from California's Vandenberg Space Force Base on SpaceX's Transporter 13 rideshare mission, EZIE's three suitcase-sized cubesats now orbit a few hundred miles above Earth in a string-of-pearls configuration.

"The EZIE team is very excited about these first-light results," Sam Yee of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, the mission's principal investigator, said in a statement. "The observations demonstrate that both the spacecraft and the MEM instrument onboard are working as expected."

MEM, short for Microwave Electrojet Magnetogram, measures a phenomenon called Zeeman splitting. This method will give NASA researchers insight into the structure and evolution of the electrojets system, which has never been available to scientists before.

Auroral electrojets are intense currents created by the massive energy transferred by the solar wind when it hits Earth's upper atmosphere. The electrojets push about 1 million amps of electrical charge around Earth's magnetic poles every second.

Related: SpaceX launches 74-satellite Transporter 13 mission, lands Falcon 9 rocket for the 400th time (video)

While they flow some 65 miles (100 kilometers) above the ground, auroral electrojets are responsible for some of Earth's largest magnetic disturbances. They can also impact the safety of astronauts and cause satellite interference.

Understanding these electrojets has been a priority at NASA for a while, and the EZIE mission marks the first time scientists will have the chance to map them up close. The mission is funded by the Heliophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington and is managed out of Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Next, the team will run final checkouts and calibrations for the three EZIE cubesats. If everything goes well, NASA says the mission will start formal science investigations in a month.

Over the past 24 hours, our planet has been reverberating from the impact of a powerful coronal mass ejection (CME) that struck Earth's magnetic field on April 15 — and the resulting auroras were absolutely breathtaking.

This wasn't just any CME, it was a rare 'cannibal' CME formed when two CMEs, launched in quick succession by a double filament eruption on the sun, merged as they traveled through space.

Initially, it was unclear whether the CMEs would arrive separately or merge, but after the dramatic geomagnetic activity and vivid aurora displays worldwide, it's now believed they combined into one stronger, cannibalized blast.

The result? A dazzling global aurora spectacle lit up skies far beyond the polar regions. NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center had issued a G3 geomagnetic storm warning for April 16. Not only were these conditions met, but for a brief period, severe G4-level storming was reached. NOAA classifies geomagnetic storms using a G-scale, which ranks their intensity from G1 (minor) to G5 (extreme).

Below, we're showcasing some of the most jaw-dropping aurora shots captured across North America, Europe and the Southern Hemisphere during this extraordinary solar storm.

Aurora photo roundup

In Tampere, Finland, Austin MacDonald captured jaw-dropping photos of last night's aurora show during the G4 conditions.

"I was amazed and almost overwhelmed. Living in Finland, I see auroras pretty often, from small G1 storms to last year’s extreme G5 storm. But last night was something special." MacDonald told Space.com in an email.

MacDonald describes the activity ramping up considerably around 2345 EET (2045 UTC), at its peak, explosive, fast-moving auroras were visible overhead.

"It came on so fast, and it wasn’t just overhead, it was to the south, north, east, west... It felt like I was standing inside a 360-degree aurora sphere. It just made me feel incredibly small," Macdonald continued.

MacDonald found himself in the right place at the right time to see the very best of last night's aurora show. Space weather is fickle, and just because something should happen doesn't mean it will.

"I used to work in meteorology, researching severe weather, and in many ways, this felt like witnessing the atmospheric equivalent of a perfect storm. You know all the ingredients that need to come together, and when they actually do, and you're lucky enough to be in just the right spot at just the right time to experience it, it's surreal. You can’t help but feel incredibly lucky to have been there for it," MacDonald said.

"It's the kind of experience that stays with you for days. You keep replaying it in your mind, catching little flashes of it every time you pause. And then there’s the spot where you stood, where you looked up and saw the sky come alive. Every time you walk past that place afterward, it hits you all over again. It anchors you. On my way to where I watched last night's aurora, I passed the spot I watched the G5 storm last May and it just all comes back to you. It's like that exact patch of earth becomes tied to something cosmic, something far bigger than you. It's like the sky left a memory there, and now it's part of your map of the world," MacDonald continued.

Photographer Sryan Bruen, captured this remarkable photograph of the northern lights dancing over Ballynafagh Church, Kildare, Ireland, at 10:11 p.m. local time.

The photograph was taken with a Nikon D7500 @ 15mm with ISO-2000, f/4.5 and a 10-second exposure time, Bruen told Space.com in an email.

Deep sky astrophotographer Astro Ben captured a beautiful timelapse of the northern lights dancing over his garden in the U.K.

"Beautiful Aurora Borealis seen tonight in England, UK," Astro Ben wrote in a post on X.

Meanwhile, aurora chaser Cat Perkinton saw a striking display over Stirling, Scotland.

"Crazy range of colours in last night's skies over #Stirling," Perkinton wrote in a post on X.

Over in West Cork, Ireland, photographer Alan Mac Cárthaigh saw a vividly pink display.

"The Aurora Borealis / Northern Lights / Merry Dancers made an “Amazing Appearance..” (around 11pm) over Courtmacsherry areas in West Cork, Ireland as ‘Easter 2025’ looms!" Mac Cárthaigh wrote in a post on X.

Photographer Antje saw the northern lights as far south as Germany

"It’s starting! Germany, 49 deg, very faint northern lights and the roosters are crowing in the village," Antje wrote in a post on X.

Meanwhile, in the Southern Hemisphere, X user aurorausau captured a beautiful photo of the aurora australis (or southern lights) dancing above.

"Aurora Australis 17/04/2025 84 % full moon at the zenith and the Lady finally decided to bring out the showgirl," aurorasau wrote in a post on X. "In true style she outshone the moon and gave us all what we were there for- naked eye beams and colour were an exciting finale."

Though conditions are subsiding, there is still a good chance of northern lights at high latitudes tonight. According to the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center, the Kp index is expected to peak at 4.33 over the next 24 hours. For the latest forecast and timing details, check out NOAA's 3-day outlook.

Keep up to date with the latest aurora forecasts and geomagnetic storm warnings with our aurora forecast live blog. If you want to learn how to take top aurora photos, check out our how to photograph auroras guide.

Aurora chasers, get ready! The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) has issued a geomagnetic storm warning due to an incoming one-two punch from the sun, and we have possibly received the first blow.

The predicted G3-level storm conditions could bring northern lights as far south as Illinois and Oregon (typically 50° geomagnetic latitude) tonight.

The incoming "punch" from the sun is expected to arrive in the form of two coronal mass ejections (CMEs) that are expected to strike Earth in succession. The CMEs were launched during a rare double eruption of solar magnetic filaments on April 12 and April 13. Arriving hours earlier than expected, a CME struck Earth's magnetic field at 1 p.m. ET (1700 GMT) on April 15, according to Spaceweather.com.

A strong (G3) geomagnetic storm watch remains in place for today (April 16) as conditions could intensify again, particularly if another CME arrives. According to the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center, the Kp index is expected to peak at 5.33 over the next 24 hours. For the latest forecast and timing details, check out NOAA's 3-day outlook.

NOAA classifies geomagnetic storms using a G-scale, which ranks their intensity from G1 (minor) to G5 (extreme). The recent geomagnetic storm watch NOAA issued is rated a G3, indicating "strong" storm conditions. "Watches at this level are infrequent, but not uncommon," NOAA SWPC wrote in the geomagnetic storm watch statement.

CMEs are large expulsions of plasma and magnetic field from the sun; when they collide with Earth's magnetic field, they can cause geomagnetic storms that trigger brilliant auroras, sometimes visible much farther south than usual. With this event, auroras may be visible as far south as Oregon and Illinois, making it a must-watch for northern lights enthusiasts. The effects of the solar punch are expected to be felt through April 17, with heightened geomagnetic activity predicted over the next few days.

The timing of the CME impacts can vary, so it’s important to stay updated on space weather alerts that provide real-time forecasts based on your location. A great option is "My Aurora Forecast & Alerts" (available for iOS and Android). For a deeper dive into space weather conditions, "Space Weather Live" is another excellent choice (available for iOS and Android)

You can keep up to date with the latest aurora forecasts and geomagnetic storm warnings with our northern lights alert live blog. Learn how to take fantastic photos of the northern lights with our how to photograph auroras guide.

Editor's note: This story was updated at 3 p.m. EST (1900 GMT) to include details of the initial CME impact that arrived earlier than previously predicted and again at 6:45 a.m. ET (1045 GMT ) on April 16 to include information about the G3 storm watch remaining in place for today (April 16).

Heads up, aurora chasers! Earth's magnetic field is about to get a one-two punch from the sun — and the result could be an impressive show of northern lights stretching into mid-latitudes.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) has issued a geomagnetic storm watch for April 16, as two coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are expected to strike in close succession. These CMEs were launched by a rare double eruption of solar magnetic filaments on April 12 and April 13. According to NOAA and Spaceweather.com, the CMEs could lead to G2-class (moderate) geomagnetic storm conditions, increasing the chances of visible auroras not just in Canada, but also across the northern-tier U.S. states like New York and Idaho.

"These #solarstorms will likely travel slowly, but they are dense and thus could pack a decent punch!" Space Weather Physicist Tamitha Skov wrote in a post on X. "Still waiting for coronagraph data to inform model runs, but impact could be late April 15 or early April 16."

CMEs are massive clouds of charged solar particles that can rattle our planet's magnetic field. This interaction triggers geomagnetic storms — and, when strong enough, can spark impressive aurora displays beyond their usual high-latitude range.

What to expect

According to NOAA's three-day space weather outlook, geomagnetic activity is expected to increase late on April 15 or early April 16, peaking during the day and tapering off afterward. Timing CME impacts can be tricky, so keep your aurora alerts turned on and stay flexible — these storms don't always stick to a strict schedule.

Predicting the exact time of arrival for the CMEs is incredibly difficult as space weather, like weather on Earth, is a fickle creature.

Keep in mind that even if a CME hits Earth, the effect on auroras depends on the magnetic field alignment within the CME. If the alignment allows it to connect with Earth's magnetosphere, it could result in spectacular northern lights displays. However, if Earth's magnetosphere "closes the door" on the CME, aurora chasers might be left disappointed.

When checking space weather data from resources like Space Weather Live, pay close attention to the Interplanetary Magnetic Field (IMF), especially the Bz value, which indicates the north-south direction of the IMF. For a strong connection to Earth's northward-pointing magnetosphere, the Bz needs to be oriented southward, according to Space Weather Live.

Check out our aurora live updates blog for the latest northern lights forecasts and alerts.

We already told you that this month’s Full Pink ‘micromoon’ is scheduled to rise on Saturday (April 12), getting to its fullest point at 8:22 p.m. EDT (0022 GMT April 13). If you’re not familiar, unlike the powerful and larger-than-life supermoon that we will get to experience later this year, a micromoon is actually the opposite. This is when the moon will be located the farthest away from Earth (a point referred to as apogee), and as a result, it’s the tiniest and dimmest full moon of 2025 (nicknamed pink not because of the hue, but because it’s more faint than the others!)

The April full moon will coincide wth a potential geomagnetic storm (G1) that could take place overnight April 11 into April 12, according to an update by the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center. This is the result of a coronal mass ejection (CME) whirling toward Earth that's expected to reach our magnetic field heading into the weekend. Higher latitudes located in the northern part of the United States that could view the northern lights include northern Michigan and Maine.

Could there be more chances to view the aurora in the immediate? According to SWPC’s latest forecast on Friday sunspot region AR4055 should be monitored for the possibility of solar flares through the weekend that could produce additional CMEs.

Earth's auroras look a bit different from above.

NASA astronaut Don Pettit captured two amazing videos of our planet's natural light shows from the International Space Station (ISS) last week.

One of them, which he posted to the social media site X on April 4, shows the auroras, also known as the southern lights dancing below the orbiting lab as it flew above the chilly waters between Australia and Antarctica.

The other video, which Pettit posted on April 5, shows stunning "green vaporous turbulence" above a patch of the planet that the astronaut does not identify.

Related: ISS astronaut captures green auroras dancing over city lights (video)

Pettit, 69, is NASA's oldest active astronaut. He's known to space enthusiasts for his off-Earth photography and experiments, which he frequently shares with the public via X.

For example, last October, Pettit used food coloring to make a small sphere of water look like a gas-giant planet, complete with striking cloud bands. And a month later, he snapped a photo of the sixth test flight of SpaceX's Starship megarocket, capturing the trail the huge vehicle left in Earth's atmosphere.

Pettit arrived at the ISS in September aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft along with two cosmonaut colleagues, Aleksey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner. The trio are expected to return to Earth later this month.

The current ISS mission is the fourth for Pettit. He lived aboard the orbiting lab for long stretches from 2002 to 2003 and 2011 to 2012, and also flew a two-week mission to the station in 2008.

That day, Mexico was hit by its most powerful geomagnetic storm in more than two decades — marking the first time gleaming auroras were observed in the country since the year 1989. This storm was so powerful it could actually be seen in countries as far away from the ice caps as you can get, including Italy and south of the U.K. The event was indeed the talk of the town. Auroras usually make up either the Northern Lights or the Southern Lights, but they certainly aren't expected to occur smack in the middle.

Geomagnetic storms that produce these lights are the result of massive eruptions from the sun's surface, and are most pronounced at the polar regions of our planet because that's where the Earth’s magnetic field is weakest. They therefore aren't often as visible at low-latitude countries like Mexico. It's important to track these storms because, yes they make for great photo opportunities, but they also can be threatening if severe. For instance, they could threaten the power grid, satellite communication systems and astronauts in space. Powerful auroras reaching Mexico could therefore suggest countries closer to the equator are more at risk from solar storms than first thought.

What causes auroras?

Coronal mass ejections — fiery busts of plasma from the sun's corona — can cause space weather conditions that threaten our planet in a few different ways. These ejections refer to plasma erupting from the sun's surface, which can force particles from the sun and surrounding space to collide with particles in the Earth's atmosphere. Those solar particles can reach speeds pushing 45 million miles per hour (72 million kilometers per hour). Upon reaching our planet's atmosphere, these collisions sometimes generate the beautiful vistas we call auroras — but they can also risk things like the power grid. Altogether, these disturbances are collectively termed "geomagnetic storms."

The recent geomagnetic storm that surprised scientists impacted Mexico for over 40 hours and caused auroras at the expected place: the polar ice caps, shooting blue, red and yellow hues across the North American sky. However, this storm was unique in that it caused auroras in unexpected locales as well; people out celebrating Mother's Day in Mexico took photos of the "Northern Lights in Mexico" and uploaded them to social media. Perspectives of the events can be seen from 18 out of the country's 32 states.

The sun is constantly interacting with the gases that surround the Earth's outer layers. Our planet's ionosphere, the third layer that sits between 30 and 600 miles (48 and 966 kilometers) from the ground, is more "active" above Mexico than in other parts of the world, in a sense, because it lies above the lower-latitude region of the planet, where electrons are more densely packed together. Radiation from the sun has sufficient energy to knock electrons from atoms in the ionosphere, which causes them to become positively charged and produce the colorful auroras.

"These particles [from the sun] are travelling … at an immense speed," Lika Guhathakurta, a solar scientist at the Heliophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington, told Space.com. "All these particles go like an envelope around the magnetic sphere, [then they] percolate down into the ionosphere."

The danger of geomagnetic storms

Satellites work by beaming radio signals through the ionosphere to receivers on the ground. During a geomagnetic storm, the overactive ionosphere bends the radio signals and causes delays, leading computers on Earth to receive corrupted data which can disrupt modern economies that rely on lightning-fast satellite communication to function properly. For just a moment, Mexico's Global Navigation Satellite System plunged out of sync by almost 80 nanoseconds — one billionth-of-a-second disruptions that risk financial markets and GPS navigation.

"This cycle is definitely much more active than the prior two cycles, which is about 32 years," said Guhathakurta. "Our work is becoming more technologically vulnerable. There are a lot more sectors we’re electrifying that we didn’t previously do."

Hoping to document the rare auroras — which actually included reddish, less frequent ones that usually only happen at higher altitudes — researchers asked citizen scientists to photograph what they saw. Some scientists are using these photos as part of an effort to create a timeline of geomagnetic storms stretching back into the 1700s, which they hope can be used to better understand the history of our sun and its impacts on the Earth.

At the same time, the Mexico Space Weather Service (SCIESMEX) and the National Space Weather Laboratory (LANCE) measured the solar storm, documenting its activity and publishing their research in the journal Space Weather. They presented their findings at the American Geophysical Union's 2024 annual conference.

"Thanks to our data we were able to observe the level of impact on the ionosphere," Elsa Sanchez-Garcia, professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and researcher at LANCE, told Space.com via email (translated from Spanish). "If there is a more intense event or one of equal magnitude to the event of May 10, we can infer the level of impact it will have on our country."

Lying low

Coronal mass ejections can rattle Earth's magnetic field and produce geomagnetically induced currents (GICs). If human power grids are not built to account for electrical surges, GICs can overload them.

The Earth's crust already produces a weak electrical charge which ramps up during a solar storm. Space weather monitors showed that the May 2024 storms electrified rocks and soil in the U.S. When solar wind hits the Earth’s magnetosphere — a bubble-like magnetic field generated by the Earth’s molten core that sits above the ionosphere — the oscillations generate GICs that can run through railroad tracks, underground pipes and into power grids, risking blackouts.

LANCE placed GIC monitors around transformers to see if the storm could tip Mexico into a blackout, but the institute reported that the country's national grid held up. The study's authors said the fact that the lights stayed on was a "testament to the resilience of the current infrastructure" in Mexico.

However, other low-latitude countries might not be so well prepared.

Although the Comision Federal de Electricidad (CFE), the national electrical utility in Mexico, was safe this time, scientists warn that geomagnetic storms could become more common as the sun reaches the peak of the solar cycle, called the solar maximum, a prolonged period of heightened solar activity. The Great Quebec Blackout of 1989 was caused by a similar solar storm, and more could be on the way.

"Previously, auroras were only seen with the naked eye in a sky without light pollution and when the event was really extreme," said Sanchez-Garcia. "Nowadays, cameras and/or phones are so well developed that it is possible to observe an aurora at low latitudes using a long exposure shot."

The last time solar activity was so visible across the world was during the year 2003, when the digital era had not advanced sufficiently to allow high-quality photos of auroras and social media was not widespread enough to allow the photos to be shared far and wide — so while recency bias makes it seem as though the Northern Lights are moving south for the first time, we’re experiencing something that has happened before, albeit mostly without photo documentation. The question is to what extent national grids and our new digital infrastructure can cope with the sun's twists and turns.

"These storms can happen at any time during the solar maximum, the only thing [we’re noticing now] is the frequency," added Guhathakurta.

The "Gannon Storm," as this powerful has come to be known, was named after scientist Jennifer Lea Gannon, a member of the NASA space weather team and colleague of Guhathakurta who passed away at the age of 45.

Carrying on NASA's work, researchers in Mexico are working on the ground with citizen scientists to try to predict when the next large geomagnetic storm will be. The Northern Lights in Mexico that trended on social media were technically harmless — but if an even more powerful storm strikes, pictures of the mesmerizing aurora may struggle to make it to the internet. The dwindling battery life of cellphones could force the event to stay in memory as residents — still singing the songs on Mother's Day — wait for the power to return.

The experiment, called Auroral Waves Excited by Substorm Onset Magnetic Events, or AWESOME, is led by researchers from the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF). Two of three planned sounding rockets launched from the Poker Flat Research Range north of Fairbanks, Alaska, in the early morning hours on March 25.

As the two rockets flew high into auroras, they released puffs of gas known as vapor tracers that created colorful light shows visible across much of northern Alaska. The movements of these vapor tracers can be recorded and studied from the ground used to measure atmospheric winds and flows of charged particles in the upper atmosphere and ionosphere, according to NASA.

"I'm extremely pleased that we were able to get the conditions to line up to allow us to launch and to conduct the experiment," Mark Conde, lead researcher from the Geophysical Institute and UAF space physics professor, said in a statement. "I am absolutely delighted."

The first sounding rocket to launch for the experiment was a 42-foot Terrier-Improved Malemute rocket.

Shortly after, a 70-foot, four-stage Black Brant XII rocket launched. The sounding rockets released vapor tracers and pressure sensors at different heights across central and northern Alaska during a sudden auroral substorm, which is a sudden, brief, and explosive intensification, or brightening, of an aurora. The Malemute rocket also measured magnetic perturbations caused by the aurora.

The small free-flying instruments released during the experiment will help gauge how the energy and momentum injected into Earth's middle and lower thermosphere by auroral substorms may disrupt its stability. Understanding the interaction between Earth's upper atmosphere and auroras — which are caused by charged particles from the sun interacting with Earth's magnetic field and atmosphere — can, in turn, help improve space weather forecasting.

During the launch, UAF student and staff researchers were located at ground stations in Utqiagvik, Kaktovik, Toolik Lake, Eagle, Venetie, and Poker Flat in Alaska, allowing project scientists to get many different views of the experiment.

"Because we had the two-stage rockets deploying over central Alaska and the four-stage rocket deploying off the north coast of Alaska, we essentially were conducting two independent tracer experiments at the same time," Conde said in the statement. "And because the camera locations we needed were completely different for each of those rockets, we needed many camera sites to be clear at the same time."

The launch of the third rocket — a two-stage Terrier-Improved Malemute — was delayed due to an issue with the motor that needed to be assessed for repair. The team is investigating a minor anomaly in a wiring harness for one of the motor stages and hopes to launch the third rocket before April 6, when the experiment's launch window closes, according to the statement.

The third rocket is expected to launch additional tracers, which must be released during dawn hours so that sunlight shining in the upper altitudes can activate the vapor tracers while it is still dark enough on the ground for cameras to photograph their response to air movement.

Scientists have long suspected that the distant ice giant hosts shimmering light displays, based on fleeting hints from the Voyager 2 probe's flyby and observations of similar activity on Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus. Capturing images of Neptune's auroras had remained out of reach until the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST or Webb) turned its powerful eye towards the icy planet.

"Turns out, actually imaging the auroral activity on Neptune was only possible with Webb's near-infrared sensitivity," said Henrik Melin of Northumbria University, who conducted the research while at the University of Leicester, in a statement accompanying the photos. "It was so stunning to not just see the auroras, but the detail and clarity of the signature really shocked me."

Even more significant is the unique nature of Neptune's aurora, which scientists say differs from those seen on Earth, Jupiter, and Saturn, where auroras are typically confined to the poles. This is because their magnetic fields are relatively well aligned with their rotation axes, guiding charged particles from the solar wind toward the polar regions.

Neptune, on the other hand, has a highly tilted and offset magnetic field, which means its auroras appear at unexpected locations, such as the planet's mid latitudes.

These observations were made possible by the James Webb Space Telescope's Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec), an instrument that analyzes the light absorbed or emitted by celestial objects. By breaking down the different wavelenghts of this light, scientists can determine key physical properties, such as temperature, mass and chemical composition.

In this case, NIRSpec captured detailed images of Neptune's ionosphere — the electrically charged layer of its upper atmosphere, similar to Earth's ionosphere, where auroras form. Excitingly, Webb's data revealed emissions of trihydrogen cation (H₃⁺), one of the most abundant ions in the universe. This discovery is significant because H₃⁺ plays a crucial role in planetary auroras, glowing in response to interactions between planets' atmospheres and charged particles from the solar wind.

"H3+ has a been a clear signifier on all the gas giants — Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus — of auroral activity, and we expected to see the same on Neptune as we investigated the planet over the years with the best ground-based facilities available," explained JWST scientist Heidi Hammel. "Only with a machine-like Webb have we finally gotten that confirmation."

The team was also able to take a temperature reading of Neptune, something that hasn't been done since Voyager 2's flyby in August, 1989. "I was astonished [by the results]," Melin said. "Neptune's upper atmosphere has cooled by several hundreds of degrees [in that time]. In fact, the temperature in 2023 was just over half of that in 1989."

The dip in planetary temperature may help explain why the aurora have been so difficult to view. This is because auroras occur when charged particles excite atmospheric gases, causing them to emit light. Higher temperatures generally mean more energetic particles and a higher rate of collisions, leading to brighter auroras. A substantially colder temperature would reduce the density of energetic ions, leading to weaker emissions that are harder to detect.

Astronomers will continue to study Neptune using the JWST, hoping to gain a deeper understanding of our solar system's strangest planet.

"As we look ahead and dream of future missions to Uranus and Neptune, we now know how important it will be to have instruments tuned to the wavelengths of infrared light to continue to study the auroras," added Leigh Fletcher of Leicester University, co-author on the paper. "This observatory has finally opened the window onto this last, previously hidden ionosphere of the giant planets."

This is exciting news for aurora enthusiasts, as the expected G2-level storm could bring northern lights as far south as New York and Idaho.

NOAA's SWPC forecasts the Kp index to peak at 5.67 over the next 24 hours, signaling strong geomagnetic activity. For the latest aurora forecast and timing updates, check NOAA's 3-day space weather outlook.

The predicted increase in geomagnetic activity is driven by a co-rotating interaction region (CIR) — a turbulent area in the solar wind where fast-moving streams collide with slower wind ahead of them. CIRs can generate shock waves similar to those found in coronal mass ejections (CMEs), enhancing space weather effects.

This particular CIR is fueled by a massive Earth-facing coronal hole in the sun's atmosphere. Coronal holes are regions where the sun's magnetic field opens up, allowing high-speed solar wind to escape freely into space. In ultraviolet images, these areas appear darker because they lack the hot, glowing gases typically trapped by magnetic fields, according to spaceweather.com.

In more great news for aurora enthusiasts, this surge in geomagnetic activity comes at the perfect time. That's because Earth is currently in an ideal position for dazzling auroras, thanks to its proximity to the vernal equinox, which occurred on March 20.

Auroras tend to be stronger around the equinoxes due to a phenomenon known as the Russell-McPherron effect. During this period, Earth's magnetic field can develop temporary "cracks," allowing even weak solar wind to penetrate and spark brilliant displays. Unlike other times of the year when Earth is tilted toward or away from the sun, the equinox brings a more neutral alignment. This allows the solar wind's magnetic field to interact more efficiently with Earth's, channeling energy into the atmosphere and enhancing auroral activity.

We could be in for a spectacular show tonight, so keep your eyes on the skies!

To stay updated on aurora activity, consider using a space weather app that provides real-time forecasts based on your location. A great option is "My Aurora Forecast & Alerts" (available for iOS and Android). For a deeper dive into space weather conditions, "Space Weather Live" is another excellent choice (available for iOS and Android)

The solar eruption, called a coronal mass ejection (or CME), exploded on Friday (March 21) even as a so-called "coronal hole" opened on the sun to unleash a separate high-speed stream of solar particles toward Earth. The result: A tag-team of solar material that should reach Earth this weekend to amplify northern lights displays late Saturday and early Sunday (March 22-23).

"A coronal hole high speed stream and coronal mass ejection arrival are likely to combine this coming night (Sat 22 Mar), bringing Enhanced to Strong solar wind speeds for a time," the Meteorological Office of the United Kingdom wrote in an update today.

In the U.S., the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued an alert for a strong G3-class geomagnetic storm watch for Sunday, which could make auroras visible as far south as Oregon and U.S. states across the lower Midwest.

"Watches at this level are infrequent, but not uncommon," NOAA officials wrote in the alert.

Auroras occur when charged particles from the sun's solar wind reach Earth, where they are funneled over our planet's polar regions to Earth's magnetic field. When those particles interact with the upper atmosphere, they cause a glow (usually in green) visibel to skywatchers. Spikes in those interactions can reach geomagnetic storm levels like the G3 storm watch issued by NOAA.

When the sun unleashes major solar flares, erutions or particle streams, that baseline aurora activity amps up, with the northern lights visible farther south than its typical polar regions. Increased solar activity can also lead to different colors of auroras, such as stunning reds and purples, in addition to green.

If you live in the visibility region for this weekend's potential northern lights and want to try and see the auroras, you'll need to find the darkest skies possible. Light pollution from city lights and even street lights can spoil the view (just like during meteor showers).

The space weather that drives northern lights displays can be unpredictable, so it's helpful to use an app you can personalize to your viewing location to get updates during storm watches like this weekend's. We typically recommend "My Aurora Forecast & Alerts," available on both iOS and Android, as well as "Space Weather Live" app on iOS and Android.

Editor's note: If you observe the northern lights this weekend and capture a stunning photo or video that you'd like to share with Space.com, we want to see it! You can send in photos, video and observing comments in to spacephotos@space.com.

A coronal mass ejection (CME) from a powerful solar blast on March 1 is racing toward Earth, with the potential to spark a geomagnetic storm and subsequent impressive northern lights overnight and into tomorrow.

According to NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC), the CME is expected to graze Earth's magnetic field on March 4 or 5, potentially triggering a G1-class geomagnetic storm. But there's more — space weather physicist Tamitha Skov notes that stronger G2 storm conditions are also possible. That means a better chance for dazzling auroras, so keep an eye on the skies and get your camera gear ready!

What to expect

Geomagnetic storms occur when charged particles from the sun interact with Earth's magnetosphere, potentially causing disruptions in satellite communications, power grid fluctuations, and — most excitingly — enhanced auroral activity. With a predicted peak Kp of 5, this even falls under the minor G1 storm classification, meaning its effects will be relatively mild. However, it's also possible that we will receive more powerful G2 conditions according to Skov, in these instances northern lights are possibly visible as far south as New York and Idaho.

NOAA classifies geomagnetic storms using a G-scale, which ranks their intensity from G1 (minor) to G5 (extreme).

What time will the northern lights occur?

NOAA's forecast indicates the strongest geomagnetic activity is expected late on March 4 and perhaps into the early hours of March 5. The storm's intensity is forecasted to peak between 7:00 p.m. EST and 10:00 p.m. EST (00:00 and 03:00 GMT) on March 5, with a Kp index reaching G1 levels. Activity will likely taper off throughout the day on March 5, returning to quieter conditions by March 6. For the latest predictions and timings see NOAA's 3-day space weather forecast.

Check out our aurora live updates blog for the latest northern lights forecasts and alerts.

For those in northern latitudes, tonight could bring a chance to witness the northern lights. Stay tuned for updates, and if you're hoping to catch the aurora, find a dark location away from city lights and keep an eye on space weather alerts.

Electrojets are intense electric currents that flow above the Earth. Magnetic disturbances from auroral electrojets can lead to power outages on our planet, for instance, impact astronauts' safety, and interfere with satellites.

Now, NASA has a plan to study these powerfully disruptive currents, with hopes of managing their potential effects. In March, the EZIE (Electrojet Zeeman Imaging Explorer) mission will launch three suitcase-sized satellites, called cubesats, aimed at tracking the troubling phenomena.

"EZIE is the first mission dedicated exclusively to studying the electrojets," Larry Kepko, an EZIE mission scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, said in a statement. "It does so with a completely new measurement technique."

In particular, the mission relies on the Zeeman technique. Here's how it works

Tracking spaceborne currents

Molecules of the element oxygen usually emit microwave radiation at a frequency of 118 gigahertz, and the important thing here is that oxygen molecules exist around our planet. Meanwhile, electrojets create a magnetic field around our planet — and this field can split the 118 gigahertz emission line associated with those oxygen molecules. The process is called Zeeman splitting. When the magnetic field is stronger, this emission line is split further apart.

Using an onboard instrument called a microwave electrojet magnetogram, the three EZIE cubesats will observe the Zeeman splitting effect while orbiting the Earth.

NASA will then study the strength and direction of the observed magnetic fields created by the electrojets. Their scientists hope this will reveal the structure and evolution of the electrojet system.

"The utilization of the Zeeman technique to remotely map current-induced magnetic fields is really a game-changing approach to get these measurements at an altitude that is notoriously difficult to measure," Sam Yee, EZIE's principal investigator at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), said in the same statement.

Notably, the EZIE mission will tap into the power of citizen scientists to enhance its research. By distributing dozens of EZIE-Mag magnetometer kits to U.S. students, as well as volunteers worldwide, NASA will be able to compare lots of data gathered on Earth with EZIE's observations.

"EZIE scientists will be collecting magnetic field data from above, and the students will be collecting magnetic field data from the ground," Nelli Mosavi-Hoyer, EZIE project manager at APL, said in the statement.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 is scheduled to launch the three EZIE CubeSats from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California with the Transporter-13 rideshare mission. The launch will happen during solar maximum, when activity from the sun is stronger and more frequent. "It’s better to launch during solar max," Kepko said. "The electrojets respond directly to solar activity."

Other NASA heliophysics missions, like PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere), will work alongside the EZIE mission. PUNCH, which is scheduled to launch this week, will study how material in the sun's outer atmosphere turns into the solar wind.

"We're leveraging the new capability of cubesats," Kepko said. "This is a mission that couldn’t have flown a decade ago. It's pushing the envelope of what is possible, all on a small satellite. It’s exciting to think about what we will discover."

Here's why the northern lights have become more visible and more talked about than ever over the past year.

Northern lights explained

Auroras happen when charged particles from the sun — the solar wind — interact with Earth's magnetic field. An auroral oval sits permanently over the Arctic and Antarctic circles at 66 degrees north and south, respectively. Locations in these regions — including Alaska, northern Canada, northern Scandinavia and northern Russia — frequently see auroras at night, between about 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. from late August and early April every year when there's enough darkness.

Related: Where and when to see the northern lights in 2025

"The fundamental processes that create them are always occurring," Tom Kerss, author of "The Northern Lights: The Definitive Guide to Auroras (Collins, 2021) and chief aurora hunter for Hurtigruten Astronomy Cruises, told Space.com. "The interaction between the Earth's magnetic field and the solar wind continuously produces auroral activity in the polar regions."

Solar maximum explained

Solar maximum is one reason the northern lights are big news right now. The sun has a roughly 11-year solar cycle, during which our star's activity waxes and wanes. This activity includes solar flares, which are explosions on the sun; and coronal mass ejections (CMEs), which are clouds of charged particles that launch into space, sometimes in Earth's direction. During the lull in that cycle, called solar minimum, the sun's surface is blank and little happens.

When solar cycle activity picks up sunspots appear as black areas on the sun's surface. They can be seen through telescopes fitted with solar filters, and even through solar eclipse glasses. (Make sure to view the sun safely with the best solar viewing gear.) These sunspots are cooler areas of the sun's surface, and how many are visible correlates to how active the sun is. Solar maximum is declared when the number of sunspots peaks.

Scientists at NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predicted that the current cycle, Solar Cycle 25 (the 25th since 1755, when regular daily records of sunspots began), would reach its maximum in July 2025. The error bars mean the actual peak — which is measured as the number of sunspots in a calendar month — could occur between November 2024 and March 2026. In October 2024, the same solar scientists announced that solar maximum had arrived. However, they also stated that this solar maximum period could continue for the following year.

How solar maximum affects who sees auroras

Because they experience auroras frequently, regions under the auroral oval are the best places in the world to see the northern lights throughout the solar cycle. However, the intensity and visibility can still vary. Solar maximum periods will produce more spectacular and widespread displays, which can be visible at lower latitudes. In short, the intensity of the solar wind can increase — principally when a few CMEs arrive at Earth simultaneously to trigger a significant geomagnetic storm — causing the auroral oval to shift closer to the equator.

Why Solar Cycle 25 is so special

Solar Cycle 25 has outperformed predictions and explains why auroras have been seen farther from the Arctic and Antarctic circles. "With auroras being visible globally in May [2024] and then again in October [2024] and January [2025], it's been a special cycle so far," Kerss said.

There are generally more solar flares and CMEs during solar maximum, which, theoretically, occurs every 11 years. In practice, the sun is highly active on each side for a year or two.

"What's been fascinating about Solar Cycle 25 is that, so far, it's on track to exceed the expected performance of the previous Solar Cycle 24, and perhaps even Solar Cycle 23, which was a pretty good, strong cycle for auroras," Kerss said. In short, it's the best time to see auroras farther south than where the auroral oval is typically positioned for a couple of decades.

Related: What it's like to chase the northern lights along Norway's dramatic coastline

Northern lights: The impact of smartphones and social media

There are photos of the northern lights everywhere you look. Given that the last time the northern lights were seen far from the equator was a couple of years after the solar maximum in 2001, there's an obvious reason for this. Social media and smartphone apps didn't exist back then, and mobile phones had poor-quality cameras. Knowing about potential northern lights displays in advance was far less likely than it is today, when alerts and forecasts are posted on social media and sent out via smartphone notifications. And even if auroras did become visible back then, usually only experienced astrophotographers with expensive cameras had any success in photographing these colorful light displays.

In recent years, however, smartphones' low-light capabilities have improved dramatically; they have effectively doubled in quality with every new generation of phones. Even short exposures of the auroras are possible using a smartphone, as is real-time video. Now, anyone can take excellent images using a smartphone and share them with the world in seconds. Social media has also played a significant role in increasing awareness and interest in the northern lights, with platforms like Instagram driving trends in travel, including aurora viewing.

There is also a new generation of apps, such as the Glendale app, which eschews the often-misunderstood Kp index in favor of real-time solar wind data from satellites and ground stations to predict "substorms" — imminent aurora displays — and send alerts based on a user's location. Although experience in interpreting this real-time solar wind data is a huge help, the dissemination of this information on social media makes people more likely to be in the right place at the right time to witness sudden aurora displays.

Unrealistic expectations

The ease of sharing aurora experiences on social media can sometimes lead to unrealistic expectations. "What we see with our eyes is not as vibrant as the camera sees," Kerss noted. The vibrant colors captured by cameras are often more intense than the human eye perceives, which can disappoint some viewers. Aurora hunters now use smartphones to check for suspect shapes in the sky and, in fact, auroras.

Solar maximum, smartphones and social media have fueled a growing interest in space weather, astronomy and Arctic tourism and have democratized aurora viewing and astrophotography. However, these factors have also brought new challenges in managing expectations and providing accurate information.

A fresh blast of solar wind is set to enhance aurora activity just in time for Valentine's Day.

If conditions are right, the northern lights could be visible as far south as northern Michigan and Maine over the coming days.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has predicted G1 (minor) geomagnetic storm conditions on the evening of Thursday (Feb. 13) and high activity throughout Friday (Feb. 14), as a fast-moving solar wind stream heads for Earth. According to Spaceweather.com first contact with the solar wind stream is expected on Feb. 14, just in time for Valentine's Day.

What's driving the active aurora conditions?

This upcoming geomagnetic storm is driven by a high-speed solar wind stream flowing from a coronal hole — a vast region in the sun's atmosphere where solar wind escapes more easily. Solar wind speeds have appeared elevated throughout the week, ranging from 311 to 373 miles per second (500 to 600 kilometers per second), and in fact already sparked G1 storm conditions on Feb. 9. Another wave of speedy solar wind is expected to arrive between Feb. 12 and Feb. 13, which is what could set the stage for G1 storm conditions on Feb. 14.

When the solar wind reaches Earth's magnetic field, it brings a stream of charged particles that interact with our atmosphere. These interactions energize atmospheric gases, causing them to glow and produce the mesmerizing northern lights (aurora borealis) in the Northern Hemisphere. Faster, denser solar wind can further enhance these displays, intensifying their brightness and activity. The stronger the geomagnetic storm, the farther south the auroras can be seen.

Where and when to see the northern lights this week

The best chances for aurora sightings will be at high latitudes, including Canada, Alaska and parts of the northern U.S. If geomagnetic activity is strong enough, skywatchers in northern Michigan and Maine may get a special Valentine's Day light show. The best viewing conditions require clear, dark skies away from city lights.

Space weather is unpredictable, so keeping an eye on real-time forecasts is essential. One app I use is "My Aurora Forecast & Alerts," available for both iOS and Android. However, any similar app should work well. I also use the "Space Weather Live" app, which is available on iOS and Android, to get a deeper understanding of whether current space weather conditions are favorable for aurora sightings.

While there's no guarantee, this geomagnetic storm could make for an unforgettable Valentine's Day under the dancing auroras. Keep your eyes on the sky!

A massive 500,000-mile-wide (800,000-kilometer) coronal hole in the sun's atmosphere is unleashing a stream of fast-moving solar wind toward Earth, potentially supercharging auroras on Jan. 31 and Feb. 1.

Coronal holes are areas where the sun’s magnetic field opens up, allowing solar wind to flow freely into space, according to SpaceWeather.com. In ultraviolet images, these regions appear darker because they lack the hot, glowing gases usually confined by magnetic fields, as the plasma escapes outward instead.

The solar wind escaping from this coronal hole — the diameter of which measures over 62 times that of the diameter of Earth — is moving at speeds of more than 310 miles per second (500 kilometers per second). This flow is expected to reach Earth by Jan. 31 and Feb. 1, where it could spark minor (G1) geomagnetic storm conditions. While these storms are not severe, they can intensify auroral displays, creating vibrant northern and southern lights at higher latitudes. For an up-to-date breakdown of geomagnetic activity over the next 3 days, check out NOAA's SWPC 3-day forecast. NOAA classifies geomagnetic storms using a G-scale, which ranks their intensity from G1 (minor) to G5 (extreme). The recent geomagnetic storm watch NOAA issued is rated as a G1.

Auroras occur when solar wind interacts with Earth's magnetic field. The charged particles from the sun collide with gases in the upper atmosphere, such as oxygen and nitrogen, transferring energy to them. This energy is released as light, producing the colorful displays seen in the night sky. The stronger the solar wind, the more dynamic and widespread the auroras can become.

Though G1 conditions are possible for Jan. 31 and Feb. 1, remember that space weather is unpredictable and difficult to forecast, much like Earth's weather. Even though geomagnetic storm warnings at this level are not uncommon, they can occasionally amount to nothing.

To stay updated on space weather and know the best times and places to catch auroras, consider using a space weather app tailored to your location. One app I recommend is "My Aurora Forecast & Alerts," available on both iOS and Android. Another great tool is the "Space Weather Live" app on iOS and Android which offers more in-depth insights into current space weather conditions and their potential for aurora activity.

Editor's note: This article was updated at 5:50 a.m. EST (10:50 GMT) on Jan. 31 to reflect the latest forecast, which now indicates that G1 geomagnetic storm conditions may be possible on both Jan. 31 and Feb. 1. Previously, activity was only expected on Jan. 31.

The rockets are expected to lift off from the Poker Flat Research Range in Fairbanks, Alaska, as part of two missions led by space physicists Marilia Samara and Robert Michell from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. The team aims to better understand why some auroras flicker, others pulsate and others appear to have holes.

The launch window for the missions opened on Jan. 21; however, studying the eccentric light shows requires precise timing. That's why the team will use ground-based cameras at the launch site and at an observatory located about 130 miles (209 kilometers) northeast of the rockets' trajectory in Venetie, Alaska, to determine the most opportune time for launch based on auroral activity.

Aurora borealis, also known as the Northern Lights, are created when charged particles from the sun collide atoms in Earth's upper atmosphere, releasing energy as light. While scientists have a general understanding of auroras and their activity, each instance of the phenomenon exhibits unique movements and behaviors. Understanding different aurora behaviors could lend new insights about the space weather environment around our planet, NASA said in a statement.

To help to that end, the rockets NASA wants to launch into the auroras are equipped with instruments to study the interaction between electrons and Earth's magnetic field. Each rocket will target a different type of aurora, and the data collected will hopefully help researchers better understand what initially set in motion the electrons that create them.

The first mission — called GIRAFF (Ground Imaging to Rocket investigation of Auroral Fast Features) — aims to compare fast-pulsating auroras, which flash on and off a few times a second, and flickering auroras, which do so up to 15 times a second. GIRAFF, led by Michell, will use the rockets to measure the energy, quantity and relative arrival times of the electrons in both types of auroras to determine the different acceleration processes by which each aurora forms, according to the statement.

The second mission — called Black and Diffuse Aurora Science Surveyor — is led by Samara and will study so-called "black auroras," which appear to have holes or patches of missing light. The rocket flying through this type of aurora will search for outgoing electrons that may have reversed direction, resulting in the dark void spots across the otherwise fluid, colorful bands of light.

Not only does the team have to time each launch just right, but they also have to aim the rockets on the right trajectory. It takes about five minutes for the rockets to reach the altitude needed to study the Northern Lights, so the team has to best assess where the auroras will travel over that period of time from when they are first detected using the ground-based cameras.

"You do the best you can, but there's a certain mix of intuition and determination you need," Samara said in the statement.

The first CME was released during an M-class solar flare eruption on Jan. 21 and the second from a filament eruption on Jan. 22.

If both CMEs land a blow their combined result could be minor (G1) to moderate (G2) geomagnetic storm conditions according to Spaceweather.com. Skywatchers could see northern lights as far south as New York and Idaho if G2 conditions are reached.

NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center forecasts that the Kp index will peak at 5.33 over the next 24 hours, with G1 geomagnetic storm conditions possible tonight night (Jan. 24) from 10:00 p.m. EDT through 4:00 a.m. EDT on Jan. 25 (0300-0900 GMT on Jan. 25).

The Kp index is a scale from 0 to 9 that measures geomagnetic activity with higher values indicating stronger disturbances and increased chances of auroras. NOAA classifies geomagnetic storms using a G-scale, which ranks their intensity from G1 (minor) to G5 (extreme). The recent geomagnetic storm predictions are rated G1, indicating minor storm conditions. However, the combined result of both incoming CMEs could spark moderate G2 conditions.

When CMEs strike Earth's magnetosphere, they bring electrically charged particles called ions that collide with our planet's magnetic field. These collisions can spark geomagnetic storms. During these storms, ions collide with atmospheric gases, releasing energy as light. This creates the stunning displays known as the northern lights, or Aurora Borealis, in the Northern Hemisphere, and the southern lights, or Aurora Australis, in the Southern Hemisphere.

"More potential for #aurora with this latest #solarstom launch," space weather physicist Tamitha Skov wrote in a post on X.

We could experience G1 to G2 level geomagnetic storms by Jan. 25 according to Skov.

When will the geomagnetic storm occur?

Current forecasts predict possible G1 conditions overnight on Jan. 24-Jan. 25. Check out NOAA's 3-day forecast for the latest timings.

Remember that space weather is inherently unpredictable and challenging to forecast much like Earth's weather. While geomagnetic storm warnings at this level are relatively common, they sometimes result in minimal activity. However, they can also exceed initial predictions and intensify to higher geomagnetic storm levels. Stay optimistic, and be prepared to keep an eye on the skies—you never know when the auroras might put on an extraordinary display!

If you're interested in tracking space weather and knowing when and where to spot auroras, download a space weather app that provides forecasts based on your location. One option I use is "My Aurora Forecast & Alerts," available for both iOS and Android. However, any similar app should work well. I also use the "Space Weather Live" app, which is available on iOS and Android, to get a deeper understanding of whether the current space weather conditions are favorable for aurora sightings.

Editor's note: This article was updated at 5:00 a.m. EDT (1000 GMT) on Jan. 24 to include details of the second incoming CME from the solar filament eruption on Jan. 22.

There is a great chance of strong northern lights, especially at high latitudes this weekend. Recent solar activity has prompted the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center to issue a minor G1 geomagnetic storm warning for Jan. 4 and Jan. 5.

While geomagnetic storm watches of this level are not uncommon, it's not something to ignore. A recent uptick in geomagnetic activity produced stunning northern lights displays that reached deep into mid-latitudes over New Year's. Aurora chasers at high latitudes may be in for another spectacular treat. Make sure those camera batteries are charged!

For an up-to-date breakdown of geomagnetic activity over the next 3 days, check out NOAA's SWPC 3-day forecast. NOAA classifies geomagnetic storms using a G-scale, which ranks their intensity from G1 (minor) to G5 (extreme). The recent geomagnetic storm watch NOAA issued is rated as a G1.

Coronal holes appear as dark areas in the sun's corona — the outer atmosphere — when viewed in extreme ultraviolet (EUV) and soft X-ray imagery, according to NOAA. These 'holes' appear dark because they are cooler than the surrounding material. Coronal holes allow solar wind to escape from the sun more readily, resulting in streams of relatively fast solar wind. When directed at Earth, these solar wind streams can interact with our planet's magnetic field and trigger geomagnetic storm conditions.

Though G1 conditions are predicted for the weekend, remember that space weather, much like Earth's weather, is unpredictable and difficult to forecast. Even though geomagnetic storm warnings at this level are not uncommon, they can occasionally amount to nothing.

To stay updated on space weather and know the best times and places to catch auroras, consider using a space weather app tailored to your location. One app I recommend is "My Aurora Forecast & Alerts," available on both iOS and Android. Another great tool is the "Space Weather Live" app on iOS and Android which offers more in-depth insights into current space weather conditions and their potential for aurora activity.

While many celebrated New Year's Eve with bursts of glittering fireworks, Earth joined the festivities with a natural display of its own: the northern lights.

Two coronal mass ejections (CME) struck Earth's magnetic field, sparking geomagnetic storm conditions and painting the night sky with vivid aurora displays as far south as California U.S., Austria, and Germany. The geomagnetic storms waxed and waned throughout the night, creating a dynamic celestial fireworks show that stretched well into the new year.

What caused the strong auroras?

A coronal mass ejection (CME) struck Earth's magnetic field on Dec. 31 at 11:21 a.m. EST (16:21 GMT) and a second CME hit later that night.

When CMEs strike Earth's magnetosphere, they bring electrically charged particles called ions that collide with Earth's magnetic field. These collisions can spark geomagnetic storms. During these storms, ions collide with atmospheric gases, releasing energy in the form of light. This creates the stunning displays known as the northern lights, or aurora borealis, in the Northern Hemisphere, and the southern lights, or aurora australis, in the Southern Hemisphere.

Geomagnetic storms are ranked by NOAA's G-scale, from G1 (minor) to G5 (extreme). For most of New Year's Eve, G1 conditions were experienced with G2 levels reported at 5:44 a.m. EST (1044 GMT) on Jan. 1, according to NOAA. When the second CME struck Earth it further escalated geomagnetic disturbances. Strong G3 levels were reached on Jan. 1 at 9:10 a.m. EST (1410 GMT). Several hours later G4 levels were reached, indicating a severe geomagnetic storm was reached at 12:41 EST (1741 GMT).

More to come?

And it's not over yet! The sun started 2025 with a bang, hurling a new CME toward Earth, which could trigger more northern lights around Jan. 3 and Jan. 4, according to space weather physicist Tamitha Skov.

"Our Sun rings in the New Year! We just had a new #solarstorm launch from Region 3939 in the Earth-Strike Zone," Skov wrote in a post on X.

But first, let's look back at the incredible New Year's Eve display, with these spectacular northern lights photos.

Photographer Alex Nicodim celebrated the new year with a stunning aurora show above a ski slope in Levi, Finland.

Nicodim and other skywatchers celebrating the new year were treated to an incredible northern lights display as tall pillars of green and red auroras filled the sky in the early hours of Jan. 1, 2025.

Photographer Hasan Akbas captured these stunning scenes above Alaska as the northern lights welcomed in the New Year.

The northern lights were even spotted dancing in the skies above the southeastern French village of La Roquebrussanne by photographer Yohan Laurito on Jan. 1.

Many skywatchers took to X to post incredible photos of the northern lights on New Year's Eve.

Simon Rennie managed to snap this incredible photo of fireworks AND aurora over New Year's in Finland.

Aurora chaser Mia Stålnacke captured these delightful photographs of the northern lights dancing alongside firework over Kiruna, Sweden.

"How the new year started here in Kiruna. With both natural and man made fireworks in the sky. I know which ones I prefer," Stålnacke wrote in a post on X.

Tour guide Halldor Sigurdsson captured this impressive video of the northern lights and fireworks filling the skies above Reykjavik, Iceland.

An eagle-eyed aurora chaser spotted the northern lights as far south as the Mojave Desert, U.S.

"Shockingly this G1 substorm is being detected all the way down at 35 Lat in the Mojave desert right now 9:20pm PST," Blue sky aloha wrote in a post on X.

Bad weather may have canceled a large portion of Hogmanay firework displays across Scotland, including Edinburgh's Hogmanay celebrations, but some lucky skywatchers were treated to an even more impressive show.

"What a way to bring in the New Year in bonny Scotland! Wishing you a happy & healthy 2025", Puja R. Mehta wrote in a post on X.

Amateur photographer Gary McIntyre shared this beautiful view of vivid red northern lights above Aberdeenshire, Scotland.

"Happy New Year to you all! Mother Nature put on her own display for the bells. All the very best for 2025!" McIntyre wrote in a post on X.

The northern lights were also visible over the Austrian Alps, with faint red hues captured by webcams in Saint Anton am Arlberg.

"Beautiful activity for 47°N considering Kp was ~4 (below storm threshold)!" aurora chaser Jure Atanackov wrote in a post on X.

Atanackov also shared webcam views of the northern lights from Bayerische Zugsptizbahn, south Germany.

"Central Europe got a pretty decent show, despite the geomagnetic activity never reaching even the G1 storm threshold. If only Bz had been more favourable," Atanackov wrote on X.

Editor's note: If you capture a stunning photo or video of the northern lights (or southern lights!) and want to share them with Space.com for a possible story, send images, comments on the view and your location, as well as use permissions to spacephotos@space.com.

Due to an incoming solar storm, also known as a coronal mass ejection (CME), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center issued a G3 (strong) geomagnetic storm warning for Dec. 31.

This is great news for those wishing to see the northern lights as the predicted geomagnetic storm could spark auroras as far south as Illinois and Oregon (around 50° latitude).

The culprit? A CME — a vast plume of plasma and magnetic field — was hurled out into space by the sun on Dec. 29 and Earth is in the firing line. The CME isn't alone, several other eruptions over the last few days have also produced Earth-directed eruptions which are expected to trigger strong geomagnetic storm conditions on Dec. 31, according to Solar Astrophysicist Ryan French.

"The Sun has really stepped up over the past few days, with frequent solar flares including a strong X-class event!" French wrote in a post on X. "A selection of these flares produced Earth-directed eruptions, expected to trigger a strong geomagnetic storm (bringing aurora) on the 31st!" French continued.

When CMEs strike Earth's magnetosphere, they bring electrically charged particles called ions that collide with Earth's magnetic field. These collisions can spark geomagnetic storms. During these storms, ions collide with atmospheric gases, releasing energy that manifests as light. This creates the stunning displays known as the northern lights, or aurora borealis, in the Northern Hemisphere, and the southern lights, or aurora australis, in the Southern Hemisphere.

NOAA classifies geomagnetic storms using a G-scale, which ranks their intensity from G1 (minor) to G5 (extreme). The recent geomagnetic storm watch NOAA issued is rated as a G3, indicating strong storm conditions.

When will the geomagnetic storm occur?

Current predictions place the highest level of activity (G1 to G3 conditions) between 10 p.m. EST on Dec. 30 and 10 a.m. EST on Dec. 31 (0300 GMT and 1500 GMT on Dec. 31). Another spate of activity is currently anticipated for between 4:00 p.m. EST (2100 GMT) on Dec. 31 and 10:00 p.m. EST (0300 GMT on Jan 1), with G1 conditions expected. Check out NOAA's 3-day forecast for the latest timings — note that timings are listed as UT.

Keep in mind that space weather, much like Earth's weather, is unpredictable and difficult to forecast. Even though geomagnetic storm warnings at this level are rare, they can occasionally amount to nothing.

If you're interested in tracking space weather and knowing when and where to spot auroras, download a space weather app that provides forecasts based on your location. One option I use is "My Aurora Forecast & Alerts," available for both iOS and Android. However, any similar app should work well. I also use the "Space Weather Live" app, which is available on iOS and Android, to get a deeper understanding of whether the current space weather conditions are favorable for aurora sightings.

Northern Hemisphere aurora forecast courtesy of the Met Office

Early Sunday (Dec. 29), the sun fired off a class X1.1 solar flare, one of the most powerful types of solar explosions possible, in what may be its last major flare of 2024. The solar flare erupted from the northwest region of the Earth-facing side of the sun at 2:18 a.m. EST (0718 GMT) and spawned a strong radio blackout on parts of Earth, NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) wrote in an update Sunday.

"Analysis is currently underway to determine if there was an associated coronal mass ejection, and any potential impacts," SWPC officials wrote in the update. Coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, are colossal eruptions of solar material that, when aimed at Earth, can amplify northern lights displays and interfere with satellites and power infrastructure on Earth.

SWPC officials are tracking the impacts of the solar flare to determine if a CME event was associated with it. If so, it's possible that the flare could supercharge auroras on Earth in a sort of solar fireworks display in time for New Year celebrations.

But while the X1.1 solar flare was one of the most powerful type of flares possible, it wasn't the biggest solar flare of 2024. That title goes to an X9 solar flare on Oct. 3. It was the third largest solar flare since 2011 and the fifth largest since 2005.

SWPC officials watched the X1.1. flare erupt with an instrument on its GOES-16 weather satellite. GOES-16 is part of a fleet of NOAA and NASA spacecraft that monitor the sun continuously for solar flares and other space weather events.

An incoming coronal mass ejection (CME) could spread aurora cheer this Christmas. Its anticipated arrival is predicted to spark minor geomagnetic storm conditions with auroras possible at high latitudes, such as northern Michigan and Maine.

The CME left the sun on Dec. 23 during a powerful M8.9 solar flare eruption and is currently on track to land Earth with a glancing blow.

When CMEs strike Earth's magnetosphere, they bring electrically charged particles called ions that collide with our planet's magnetic field. These collisions can spark geomagnetic storms. During these storms, ions collide with atmospheric gases, releasing energy that manifests as light. This creates the stunning displays known as the northern lights, or Aurora Borealis, in the Northern Hemisphere, and the southern lights, or Aurora Australis, in the Southern Hemisphere.

NOAA classifies geomagnetic storms using a G-scale, which ranks their intensity from G1 (minor) to G5 (extreme). The recent geomagnetic storm watch issued by NOAA is currently rated as a G1, indicating minor storm conditions.

When will the geomagnetic storm occur?

Current forecasts predict possible G1 conditions on Dec. 25. Check out NOAA's 3-day forecast for the latest timings.

Space weather physicist Tamitha Skov has provided an informative space weather forecast for the days ahead in a post on X.

Keep in mind that space weather, much like Earth's weather, is unpredictable and difficult to forecast. Even though geomagnetic storm warnings at this level are rare, they can occasionally amount to nothing.

Northern Hemisphere aurora forecast courtesy of the Met Office

If you're interested in tracking space weather and knowing when and where to spot auroras, download a space weather app that provides forecasts based on your location. One option I use is "My Aurora Forecast & Alerts," available for both iOS and Android. However, any similar app should work well. I also use the "Space Weather Live" app, which is available on iOS and Android, to get a deeper understanding of whether the current space weather conditions are favorable for aurora sightings.

Aurora hunter Todd Salat spotted the unusual aurora on Nov. 22 above an unspecified location in southcentral Alaska at around 4 a.m. local time (8 a.m. EST). The luminous letter appeared seemingly out of nowhere and lasted for a few minutes while cycling through several shapes, all of which contained strange dark patches not seen in most auroras.

"It came up from the northwest and I was like, 'whoa!' It looked like the letter E to me," Salat told Spaceweather.com. "Within just a few minutes it sailed overhead on its back and looked like some critter with its legs in the air."

The unusual aurora is the result of anti-auroras, a.k.a. black auroras. The strange phenomenon creates the rounded dark patches that look as if they have been bitten out from between the arms of the 'E' shape, Spaceweather.com reported.

As the name implies, anti-auroras are essentially the opposite of an aurora — they prevent gases from giving off energy in the form of light. The result is "dark rings, curls or blobs that punctuate the glowing colors," according to the European Space Agency (ESA).

Auroras are triggered when high-energy particles from the sun, predominantly electrons, bypass Earth's magnetic field, or magnetosphere, and superheat gas molecules in the upper atmosphere. The excited molecules release energy in the form of light, which collectively forms long smooth ribbons that twist in the sky. The color of the light varies depending on which element is being excited and where in the atmosphere it is located.

The swirling light shows normally only occur sparsely near the poles where Earth's magnetic field is weakest. But they are particularly prominent and widespread now due to increased solar activity tied to solar maximum, the peak of the sun's roughly 11-year sunspot cycle.

However, anti-auroras interrupt the aurora-forming process by starving gases of charged particles.

"The black aurora isn't actually an aurora at all; it's a lack of auroral activity in a region where electrons are 'sucked' from the ionosphere," Göran Marklund, a plasma physicist at Sweden's Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, previously told ESA.

Anti-auroras were first identified in the late 1990s. But in 2001, scientists loosely figured out how they worked when ESA's four Cluster satellites passed through space above a black aurora sighting. This revealed small vertical cells in the upper atmosphere, known as positively charged electric potential structures, where electrons were being repelled back into space.

The mechanism behind these cells remained elusive for well over a decade, until a 2015 study utilizing more than a decade of Cluster mission data showed that these structures form when auroras deplete plasma, creating "ionospheric cavities," in the upper atmosphere while the magnetosphere shifts from the strain caused by solar storms. However, the conditions have to be just right for anti-auroras to appear.

Anti-auroras can occur in the Northern Lights and the Southern Lights and typically only last for around 10 or 20 minutes. Aurora activity is expected to remain high over the next few years so there is a decent chance we could see more examples of these dark patches dancing among them.

Originally published on LiveScience.com.

On Wednesday (Nov. 20), the European Space Agency (ESA) shared four new images the spacecraft took in March of last year, when the probe was roughly 45 million miles (74 million kilometers) away from the sun. These images capture in detail the sun's dynamic and grainy surface, known as the photosphere — the layer that emits the sunlight we see.

The Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager (PHI), one of six instruments onboard the spacecraft, imaged the granules on the sun's surface, which are large, turbulent cells of plasma, each spanning roughly 620 miles (1,000 kilometers).

These granules are created by convection — the process by which hot plasma rises from the sun's depths and cooler plasma sinks, similar to bubbles forming and rising in a pot of boiling water. The cells cover the entire sun's surface, with the exception of sunspots, which are darker, cooler regions that appear as blemishes against the otherwise smooth photosphere.

The image below is a new map of the sun's magnetic fields, also from PHI. It reveals the magnetic fields to be particularly strong and concentrated in the sunspot regions. This helps explain why sunspots are colder than their surroundings — intense magnetic fields there restrict the normal convection of plasma, and force the substance to follow the magnetic field instead. As a result, some of the heat is prevented from reaching the surface, causing sunspots to be colder than elsewhere on the sun's surface.

"The sun's magnetic field is key to understanding the dynamic nature of our home star from the smallest to the largest scales," Daniel Müller, the ESA project scientist for Solar Orbiter, said in a statement.

Another new map, called a tachogram, shows the speed and direction in which material on the sun's surface moves. In the image below, blue regions are moving toward the Solar Orbiter while red regions are moving away, depicting the sun's rotation about its axis. Magnetic fields can be seen breaking through the surface in sunspot regions.

Solar wind escapes from the sun's outer atmosphere, the corona, which was also imaged last March by the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) instrument onboard Solar Orbiter. In the image below, the magnetic field lines can be seen sticking out from the sun's surface.

Wisps of plasma protrude out of the sun along these lines, often connecting neighboring sunspots. These loops of plasma are routinely ejected into space, forming charged-up solar wind that can trigger glowing aurora displays on Earth, Mars and other planets.

Solar Orbiter is currently about 75 million miles (120 million km) from the sun, just beyond the orbit of Venus, according to a spacecraft tracker run by ESA. The spacecraft, in collaboration with NASA's Parker Solar Probe, recently offered fresh clues to a long-standing mystery about how the solar wind heats up and accelerates to incredible speeds in space.

This summer, from inside the orbit of Mercury, Solar Orbiter also accomplished a key objective of tracing a pocket of solar wind back to its source on the sun by finding unique "footprints" in streams of solar wind that are typically smeared out by the time they reach Earth.

The latest mosaics are composed of 25 images each, captured over a span of roughly four hours, according to ESA. The probe's proximity to the sun meant each image covered only a small portion of the sun's disk, so the spacecraft had to be tilted and rotated until the entire sun was imaged. The images were then stitched together to achieve the full-disk, 8000-pixel mosaics.

"The image processing required to obtain the PHI mosaics was new and difficult," the agency said in the statement. "Now that it has been done once, processing the data and assembling mosaics will go faster in the future."

The probe launched in 2020 on a joint European-NASA mission to gather never-before-seen views of the sun's poles. Those images won't come until early 2025, when the spacecraft's orbit will allow it to achieve a higher inclination and provide a direct view of the sun's poles.

We'll also report on relevant solar activity and significant space weather events such as coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and coronal holes which could bring strong aurora-sparking solar winds our way.

REMEMBER: The Kp index is important, with a higher Kp indicating stronger auroral activity. A key ingredient of aurora activity is the Bz value of the Interplanetary Magnetic Field, which can be easily viewed on SpaceWeatherLive.com. You're ideally looking for a strong "south" Bz which means it will connect with Earth's magnetosphere which points northward. A strong southward Bz can wreak havoc with Earth's magnetic field and send particles raining down through the atmosphere along magnetic field lines. When these energized particles collide with atoms in Earth's atmosphere they release the light we see as auroras. If there is a strong southward Bz, your chances of seeing auroras increase significantly.

Best year for auroras | Aurora colors | Aurora myths | Where to see

Monday, Nov. 8: Quiet sun but aurora sightings possible at high latitudes

Today there is a good possibility of seeing the northern lights at high latitudes primarily above the Arctic Circle. A maximum Kp of around 3 Kp is predicted for tonight from around 1:00 - 7:00 p.m. EST (1800-0000 GMT), according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)'s Space Weather Prediction Center. This could bring unsettled aurora activity in high latitudes.

A large Earth-facing coronal hole could also bring an increase in geomagnetic activity over the coming days. When directed at Earth, the stream of solar wind flowing from a coronal hole can impact Earth's magnetosphere, triggering geomagnetic storm conditions and resulting in impressive aurora displays.

The sun has been rather quiet of late, but if it unleashes a powerful solar flare (either M or X class) accompanied by a coronal mass ejection (CME) in the coming days, we could be in for an aurora treat. CMEs are large plumes of plasma and magnetic field that erupt from the sun. When they collide with Earth they can trigger geomagnetic storms which in turn lead to dramatic auroras.

Current solar flare predictions for today courtesy of SpaceWeatherLive.com

M-class solar flare: 50%

X-class solar flare: 10%

Tuesday, Nov. 19: Low Kp predicted but active sun could spell good conditions for later in the week

Today there is still a good chance of seeing the northern lights at high latitudes primarily above the Arctic Circle, despite lower Kp predictions compared to yesterday. A maximum Kp of around 2 is predicted for tonight from around 4 - 7 p.m. EST (2100-0000 GMT), according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)'s Space Weather Prediction Center. This could bring unsettled aurora activity in high latitudes.

A large coronal hole continues to face Earth and may trigger increased geomagnetic activity over the coming days. When directed at Earth, the stream of solar wind flowing from a coronal hole can impact Earth's magnetosphere, triggering geomagnetic storm conditions and resulting in impressive aurora displays.

The sun appears to be "waking up" from a brief hiatus in solar activity, unleashing nine M-class solar flares yesterday. A majority of the flares originated from a newly emerging sunspot group AR3901. The sunspot is turning toward Earth which means if it unleashes a powerful solar flare (either M or X class) accompanied by a coronal mass ejection (CME) in the coming days, we could be in for an aurora treat. CMEs are large plumes of plasma and magnetic field that erupt from the sun. When they collide with Earth they can trigger geomagnetic storms which in turn lead to dramatic auroras.

Current solar flare predictions for today courtesy of SpaceWeatherLive.com

M-class solar flare: 55%

X-class solar flare: 10%

Wednesday Nov. 20: Auroras possible at high latitudes despite relatively quiet sun

Even with low Kp predictions, there’s still a good opportunity to spot the northern lights today at high latitudes, particularly in areas above the Arctic Circle.

A maximum Kp of around 1.7 is currently predicted for tonight from around 7-10 p.m. EST (0000-0300 GMT on Nov.21), according to the NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center.

Tonight's aurora activity could also be fuelled by a significant coronal hole that remains pointed toward Earth. Solar wind streams from coronal holes can interact with the planet's magnetosphere, potentially causing geomagnetic storms and creating stunning aurora displays. So while the Kp index is low, there is still a possibility of a nice show at high latitudes this evening.

While geomagnetic activity is forecasted to remain relatively low in the coming days, this could quickly change with the eruption of a coronal mass ejection (CME), potentially resulting in striking auroral displays. CMEs are enormous eruptions of plasma and magnetic energy released from the sun, often associated with powerful solar flares. Upon reaching Earth, they can induce geomagnetic storm conditions that give rise to breathtaking auroras. We will be sure to update you if any eruptions give rise to Earth-directed CMEs!

Current solar flare predictions for today courtesy of SpaceWeatherLive.com

M-class solar flare: 50%

X-class solar flare: 10%

Thursday, Nov. 21: Quiet aurora activity but conditions improving

Despite low Kp predictions, there’s still a possibility to see the northern lights today at high latitudes, particularly in areas above the Arctic Circle.

A maximum Kp of around 2 is currently predicted for tonight from around 7-10 p.m. EST (0000-0300 GMT on Nov.22), according to the NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center. Kp's of 2 are not uncommon but it is a slight improvement on yesterday's forecast.

We could see a slight bump in aurora activity by the Earth-directed coronal hole that is currently present on the sun. However, it has shrunk significantly in the last few days and will not face Earth for much longer. But we constantly monitor the sun for other significant coronal hole formations. Solar wind streams from coronal holes can interact with the planet's magnetosphere, potentially causing geomagnetic storms and creating stunning aurora displays.

We could see a better aurora forecast tomorrow with maximum Kps of around 3 currently predicted.

While the forecast is still not too promising we need to remember that this can all change very quickly if the sun erupts with a coronal mass ejection (CME). CMEs are powerful eruptions of plasma and magnetic field from the sun, when Earth-directed they can slam into our magnetosphere and trigger geomagnetic storm conditions which in turn can lead to fantastic aurora displays. CMEs often accompany powerful solar flare eruptions (M or X class) so we will be sure to update you if any eruptions give rise to Earth-directed CMEs!

Current solar flare predictions for today courtesy of SpaceWeatherLive.com

M-class solar flare: 50%

X-class solar flare: 10%

Tonight and the weekend

Quiet aurora and dramatic farside eruption from the sun

The current forecast for tonight and over the weekend suggests it's likely to see the northern lights at high latitudes, particularly in areas above the Arctic Circle.

Over the weekend a maximum Kp of around 3 is currently predicted for Saturday night (Nov. 23) according to the NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center. To get a thorough breakdown of the latest Kp predictions from Nov. 22. to Nov. 24, visit NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Keep in mind, that the sun is rather fickle and can change in an instant. Just when it seemed a bit too quiet, the sun erupted with a massive farside coronal mass ejection (CME). Unfortunately for aurora enthusiasts, the eruption on Nov. 21 doesn’t appear to have an Earth-directed component.

CMEs are powerful eruptions of plasma and magnetic field from the sun, when Earth-directed they can slam into our magnetosphere and trigger geomagnetic storm conditions which in turn can lead to fantastic aurora displays

While the CME was not Earth-directed, the eruption did cause the most energetic solar radiation storm since at least 2005 according to Space Weather Physicist Tamitha Skov.

"This means it was a BIG eruption. Likely launched from Region 3889 or 3897 on the Sun's farside, this #solarstorm doesn't appear to have any Earth-directed component. We can tell because the coronal wave stays localized near the west limb." Skov wrote in a post on X.

The recent eruption reminds us that the sun can always throw up surprises. While the current weekend forecast doesn't look overly promising for dramatic auroras that can all change very quickly. We'll keep you updated on any significant developments or incoming CMEs.

Low predicted activity but a new explosive player may be entering the game in coming days

A maximum Kp of around 1.7 is currently predicted for tonight according to the NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center. Despite low Kp predictions, there’s still a possibility of seeing the northern lights today at high latitudes, particularly in areas above the Arctic Circle.

In recent days, significant solar activity has predominantly occurred on the far side of the sun. On Nov. 21, a massive coronal mass ejection (CME) erupted, triggering the most powerful solar radiation storm recorded since at least 2005. Additionally, earlier this morning at 2:30 a.m. EST (0730 GMT), the sun unleashed an M9.45-class solar flare from a region just beyond the northeast limb. This active region, which nearly produced an X-class flare, is expected to rotate into Earth’s view within the next few days, potentially making any subsequent eruptions Earth-directed.

While the current forecast is not too promising, remember that this can change rapidly if the sun erupts with a coronal mass ejection (CME). CMEs are powerful eruptions of plasma and magnetic field from the sun, when Earth-directed they can slam into our magnetosphere and trigger geomagnetic storm conditions which in turn can lead to fantastic aurora displays. CMEs often accompany powerful solar flare eruptions (M or X class) so we will be sure to update you if any eruptions give rise to Earth-directed CMEs!

Current solar flare predictions for today courtesy of SpaceWeatherLive.com

M-class solar flare: 55%

X-class solar flare: 15%

Aurora conditions improving and possible Earth-directed solar storm

Finally, some promising aurora news! A coronal mass ejection (CME) erupted from the sun on Nov. 25 and may deliver a glancing blow to Earth in time for the Thanksgiving holidays.

CMEs are powerful eruptions of plasma and magnetic field from the sun, when Earth-directed they can slam into our magnetosphere and trigger geomagnetic storm conditions which in turn can lead to impressive auroras.

The eruption from sunspot region 3901 could result in a glancing blow impact predicted for around Nov. 28.

"Waiting for coronagraph imagery to confirm, but we might get some #aurora over the Thanksgiving holiday!" Space Weather Physicist Tamitha Skov wrote in a post on X.

And that's not all!

The active sunspot region that released an M9 (almost X)-class solar flare on Nov. 25 is currently turning into view. The region has already proven its explosive capabilities, which may become geoeffective as the region turns to face Earth toward the end of the week. Space weather scientists will be watching this region carefully.

As it stands, a maximum Kp of around 2 is currently predicted for tonight according to the NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center. Despite low Kp predictions, there’s still a good chance of seeing the northern lights tonight at high latitudes, particularly in areas above the Arctic Circle.

Current solar flare predictions for today courtesy of SpaceWeatherLive.com

M-class solar flare: 55%

X-class solar flare: 15%

Keep your eyes skyward for possible Thanksgiving aurora!

You might have something to be extra thankful for this Thanksgiving, as the chances of aurora gracing our skies over the holiday are going up! A Nov. 25 coronal mass ejection (CME) from sunspot region 3901 is headed in our direction. The CME has resulted in a G1 (Minor) watch and a G2 (Moderate) watch for Nov. 28 and 29, respectively, according to a post on X from the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center.

Good chance of auroras tonight and tomorrow

Good news aurora chasers! Things are looking up (and you should be too!)

A maximum Kp of around 3 is currently predicted for tonight according to the NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center. But tomorrow night this rises close to Kp 6. NOAA has issued a geomagnetic storm watch for Nov. 28 and 29, with possible G1 and G2 conditions expected.

If G2 conditions are reached, the northern lights may be visible as far south as New York and Idaho.

You can keep up to date with the latest Kp breakdown for the next three days on NOAA's SWPC. We will update you on any significant developments here too.

We could be in for a nice aurora show over Thanksgiving as the thin waxing moon is nearing the new moon phase on Dec. 1, so moonlight will not interfere with northern lights viewing efforts. We are also in the midst of the Geminid meteor shower so when while you're out hunting auroras be sure to keep an eye out for some impressive Geminid meteors.

Current solar flare predictions for today courtesy of SpaceWeatherLive.com

M-class solar flare: 65%

X-class solar flare: 20%

Aurora alert: Thanksgiving northern lights could delight tonight

Tonight, there is a good chance of seeing the northern lights at high latitudes.

A maximum Kp of around 6 is currently predicted for tonight according to the NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center.

NOAA's G1-G2 geomagnetic storm watch for Nov. 28 and Nov. 29 remains in place. If G2 conditions are reached, the northern lights may be visible as far south as New York and Idaho.

You can keep up to date with the latest Kp breakdown for the next three days on NOAA's SWPC. We will update you on any significant developments here too.

Visibility tonight will be good, as the thin waxing crescent moon is only 7% illuminated, providing dark skies for optimum northern lights viewing. Also, keep your eye out for the Geminid meteor shower, which is currently active.

There are a few active large sunspot regions on the sun today giving a high chance of some explosive eruptions.

Current solar flare predictions for today courtesy of SpaceWeatherLive.com

M-class solar flare: 65%

X-class solar flare: 20%

Northern lights forecast for tonight and the weekend

The aurora forecast for tonight and the weekend remains relatively positive, especially for those in high latitudes.

A maximum Kp of around 3 is currently predicted for tonight according to the NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center.

Aurora chasers had been eagerly awaiting the arrival of a CME that left the sun on Nov. 25. Unfortunately, they were left in the dark as the CME struck Earth's magnetic field on Nov. 28 around 9:45 p.m. EST (0245 GMT on Nov. 29) but failed to spark the anticipated geomagnetic storm conditions.

According to Space Weather Physicist Tamitha Skov's recent space weather forecast on YouTube, solar weather could pick up this week as more active regions rotate into view, increasing our chances of solar storms. A good window of aurora viewing opportunities, especially at high latitudes remains over the holiday weekend.

Monday Dec. 2: Good possibility of northern lights at high latitudes

There is a good chance of seeing auroras at high latitudes tonight, with a maximum predicted Kp of 3 indicated by NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center. The 1% illuminated new moon tonight will also provide dark skies perfect for aurora hunting and skywatching.

According to the astronomy website SpaceWeatherLive the aurora probability forecast for tonight is:

We could see a slight bump in aurora activity over the next few days as a large coronal hole turns to face Earth.

The coronal hole is visible in GOES-16 satellite imagery. We currently do not have any Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) imagery or data due to a flood at Standford University's Joint Center for Science Operations damaging the servers.

Solar wind streams from coronal holes can interact with the planet's magnetosphere, potentially causing geomagnetic storms and creating stunning aurora displays.

Tuesday, Dec. 3: Fair chance of northern lights at high latitudes

There is a fair chance of seeing auroras at high latitudes tonight, with a maximum predicted Kp of around 2.7, as indicated by NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center. The 4% illuminated waxing crescent moon tonight will also provide dark skies perfect for aurora hunting and skywatching.

According to the astronomy website SpaceWeatherLive the aurora probability forecast for tonight is:

Over the next few days, we may observe a rise in aurora activity as a large coronal hole turns to face Earth.

The coronal hole is visible as a large dark patch in GOES-16 satellite imagery. We currently do not have any Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) imagery or data due to a flood at Standford University's Joint Center for Science Operations damaging the servers.

Read more: Broken water pipe knocks out data processing for NASA sun-studying spacecraft

Wednesday, Dec. 4: Large coronal holes could spark auroras in coming days

If you're hoping to catch a glimpse of the northern lights tonight, there's a decent chance for those at higher latitudes. According to NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center, the aurora forecast predicts a maximum Kp index of approximately 1.7. While this is on the lower end of activity, it’s still worth keeping an eye on the skies, especially in areas with minimal light pollution.

Adding to the favorable conditions, tonight’s waxing crescent moon is just 10% illuminated. This means darker skies, offering an ideal backdrop for aurora-hunting and skywatching enthusiasts.

Over the next few days, we may observe a rise in aurora activity as two large coronal holes turn to face Earth. This is good news for aurora chasers as coronal holes release high-speed solar wind streams. When these particles interact with Earth's magnetic field they increase geomagnetic activity which in turn can spark intense auroras. We could see a rise in aurora activity by the weekend.

The coronal holes are visible as large dark patches in GOES-16 satellite imagery.

Thursday, Dec. 5: Fair chance of auroras at high latitudes, conditions improving

Today there is a good possibility of seeing the northern lights at high latitudes primarily above the Arctic Circle. A maximum Kp of around 1.7 is predicted for tonight from around 1:00 - 10:00 p.m. EST (1800-0300 GMT), according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)'s Space Weather Prediction Center.

A large Earth-facing coronal hole could also bring an increase in geomagnetic activity over Dec. 6 and Dec. 7. When directed at Earth, the stream of solar wind flowing from a coronal hole can impact Earth's magnetosphere, triggering geomagnetic storm conditions and resulting in impressive aurora displays.

The sun has been rather quiet of late, but if it unleashes a powerful solar flare (either M or X class) accompanied by a coronal mass ejection (CME) in the coming days, we could be in for an aurora treat. CMEs are large plumes of plasma and magnetic field that erupt from the sun. When they collide with Earth they can trigger geomagnetic storms which in turn lead to dramatic auroras.

Current solar flare predictions for today courtesy of SpaceWeatherLive.com

M-class solar flare: 30%

X-class solar flare: 5%

Northern lights forecast for tonight and the weekend

There is a good chance of auroras at high latitudes over the weekend, with a maximum predicted Kp of 3 according to NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center.

While geomagnetic activity is forecasted to remain relatively low in the coming days, this could quickly change with the eruption of a coronal mass ejection (CME), potentially resulting in striking auroral displays. CMEs are enormous eruptions of plasma and magnetic energy released from the sun, often associated with powerful solar flares. Upon reaching Earth, they can induce geomagnetic storm conditions that give rise to breathtaking auroras. We will be sure to update you if any eruptions give rise to Earth-directed CMEs!

Monday, Dec. 9: Sporadic auroras likely this week

Expect good northern lights at high latitudes with possible heightened activity by Dec. 11.

A large coronal hole is currently facing Earth and continues to feed Earth's magnetosphere with a stream of fast-flowing solar wind triggering active aurora conditions, as reported by space weather and aurora website SolarHam in a post on X.

Yesterday (Dec. 8) the sun fired off an X-class solar flare accompanied by a coronal mass ejection (CME).

"The #solarstorm launched will graze Earth to the west. Sadly, the coming fast solar wind streams might deflect the structure even further to the west. Expect only mild impacts by midday December 11," Space Weather Physicist Tamitha Skov wrote in a post on X.

According to NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center, the highest predicted Kp index for the next 24 hours is 2.67.

Skov took to X to post a 5-day space weather outlook, noting sporadic auroras likely at high latitudes due to fast solar wind and possible glancing blow from the CME on Wednesday.

Tuesday Dec. 10: Great chance of auroras for those at high latitudes tonight

There is a great chance of auroras at high latitudes tonight. According to NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center, the highest predicted Kp index for the next 24 hours is 3.67.

The large coronal hole continues to face us and feed Earth's magnetosphere with a stream of fast-flowing solar wind, which can trigger active geomagnetic conditions and impressive auroras.

Wednesday Dec. 11: Very good chance of auroras at high latitudes tonight

There is a very good chance of auroras at high latitudes tonight. According to NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center, the highest predicted Kp index for the next 24 hours is 3.

Though a large coronal hole continues to face us and feed Earth's magnetosphere with a stream solar wind, these solar wind speeds have eased slightly in the last 24 hours according to the UK's national weather and climate service the Met Office.

We could experience unsettled geomagnetic activity by Dec. 13 due to a connection to the fast winds from another coronal hole, according to the Met Office. These could lead to sporadic active intervals of higher geomagnetic activity, so keep your eyes on the skies. You never know, you may catch a glimpse of the occasional Geminid meteor too!

Thursday Dec. 12: Fair chance of auroras at high latitudes, enhanced solar wind possible

There is a fair chance of auroras at high latitudes tonight. According to NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center, the highest predicted Kp index for the next 24 hours is 1.67.

Enhanced solar wind could be observed on Dec. 14 through Dec. 15 due to a fast solar wind emitted from an Earth-facing coronal hole according to UK's national weather and climate service the Met Office.

A large coronal mass ejection (CME)—a vast plume of plasma and magnetic field—was released from the sun yesterday (Dec. 11). However, it emanated from the backside of the sun and so has no Earth-directed component.

Northern lights forecast for tonight and the weekend

There is a good chance of auroras at high latitudes tonight and over the weekend. According to NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center, the highest anticipated Kp index for the next three days is 2.67, currently predicted for Dec. 15.

The rise in Kp by Dec. 14 and Dec. 15 is likely due to the fast solar wind emitted from an Earth-facing coronal hole according to the UK's national weather and climate service the Met Office.

Two M-class solar flares, the second most powerful category of solar flares, erupted from the sun on Dec. 12. It remains unclear whether these events were accompanied by notable coronal mass ejections (CMEs) with Earth-directed components.

The active region responsible for these eruptions, Region 3922, is beginning to rotate into a position facing Earth. Should this region produce significant CMEs in the days ahead, it could be excellent news for aurora enthusiasts.

Northern hemisphere aurora forecast courtesy of Met Office

Monday, Dec. 16: Great chance of northern lights tonight and the days ahead

There is a great chance of auroras at high latitudes tonight.

According to NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center, the highest anticipated Kp index for the next 24 hours is 4.33.

Space weather activity has increased to moderate levels in recent days and more activity could be on the horizon!

A solar filament lifted off the sun yesterday and a coronal mass ejection (CME) appeared to accompany the event according to the UK's national weather and climate service the Met Office. There appears to be an Earth-directed component of the CME, which is great news for auroras chasers!

Northern hemisphere aurora forecast courtesy of the Met Office

The aurora forecast for the next few days is looking promising. According to the Met Office, at least one, perhaps two CMEs could have Earth-directed components that may arrive between Dec. 17 and Dec. 18.

Space Weather Physicist Tamitha Skov took to X to explain the possibility of an Earth-directed solar storm in the coming days.

"We have lift off! A snake-like filament is launching while passing through the Earth-strike zone!" Skov wrote in a post on X. "This means we likely have an Earth-directed #solarstorm, finally. Impact possible by midday December 18. Waiting for coronagraph imagery for a better estimate for prediction models," Skov continued.

Tuesday Dec. 17: Geomagnetic storm warning issued, more auroras could be on the way

Solar activity is improving for aurora chasers with favorable northern lights conditions predicted for tonight for those at high latitudes.

A coronal mass ejection — a plume of plasma and magnetic field from the sun — unexpectedly impacted Earth this morning at 12:19 a.m. EST (Dec. 17) at 0519 GMT. The CME was only predicted to narrowly miss Earth, but instead, it delivered a direct hit, triggering G1 geomagnetic storm conditions. Strong auroras were visible in the northern U.S. and Canada.

Geomagnetic storms occur when solar wind or CMEs from the sun interact with Earth's magnetic field, causing charged particles to enter the atmosphere. These particles collide with gases like oxygen and nitrogen, exciting them and creating the colorful lights we see as auroras, especially near the poles.

According to NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center, the highest anticipated Kp index for the next 24 hours is 4.33.

Northern Hemisphere aurora forecast courtesy of the Met Office

Wednesday Dec. 18: Good chance of auroras again tonight

Solar wind speeds remain relatively elevated due to the impact of the coronal mass ejection (CME) on Dec. 17. There is a good chance of northern lights at high latitudes.

According to NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center, the highest anticipated Kp index for the next 24 hours is 3.

The sun unleashed several large CMEs — expulsions of plasma and magnetic field — yesterday (Dec. 17). Though every eruption is predicted to miss Earth, we cannot completely rule out a possible glancing blow. After all the CME that struck on Dec. 17 was forecast to be a glancing blow and ended up being a direct hit.

"There is some uncertainty in the forecast currently," says the U.K.'s national weather and climate service the Met Office.

Northern Hemisphere aurora forecast courtesy of the Met Office

Thursday, Dec. 19: Solar activity slows for now but some big players are on the horizon

There is still a good chance of northern lights at high latitudes. According to NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center, the highest anticipated Kp index for the next 24 hours is 2.

Aurora watchers at mid-latitudes may feel it's been a while since a major geomagnetic storm lit up the skies. However, that could soon change. Several highly active sunspot regions will be rotating into view in the coming days, raising the potential for dramatic auroral displays.

On Dec. 17, the sun unleashed an extraordinarily fast coronal mass ejection (CME), traveling at an incredible speed of 1,964 miles per second (3,161 km/s). Had it been Earth-directed, it could have reached our planet in under 18 hours.

Read more: Watch the sun unleash 'extremely rare' solar storm in explosive eruption (video)

According to solar astrophysicist Ryan French, the CME had the potential to trigger one of the largest geomagnetic storms of the past few decades!

We just have to be patient and see what the sun has in store for us when these active regions begin to face Earth. Could some Christmas auroras be on the cards? Only time will tell.

Northern lights forecast for the weekend

There is a fair chance of northern lights at high latitudes. According to NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center, the highest anticipated Kp index for Dec. 20 to Dec. 22 is 1.67.

It would be a very different story if we were on the other side of the sun. There are some incredibly active regions on the farside of the sun unleashing a barrage of powerful coronal mass ejections (CMEs). Had this happened on the Earth-facing side of the sun, we would have been in for a series of mighty solar storms.

A cluster of sunspots located in the southeast quadrant are beginning to rotate into view and are already crackling with activity.

Could some Christmas auroras be on the cards? We'll have to wait and see what the sun has in store for us.

Monday, Dec. 23: Very good chance of auroras tonight at high latitudes

There is a very good chance of northern lights at high latitudes. According to NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center, the highest anticipated Kp index for Dec. 23 to Dec. 24 is 3.

Aurora chasers at high latitudes could be in for a Christmas treat. On Dec. 24, Earth could receive a glancing blow from a minor coronal mass ejection (CME) that left the sun on Dec. 21. CMEs are vast plumes of plasma and magnetic field from the sun. If they strike Earth and the conditions are right, they can trigger geomagnetic storms, which in turn lead to spectacular aurora displays.

Tuesday, Dec. 24: Enhanced aurora conditions good news for northern observers

The northern lights forecast looks promising in the coming days, driven by the influence of fast solar winds and the potential glancing blow of an incoming coronal mass ejection (CME). CMEs are massive eruptions of plasma and magnetic field from the sun, when they interact with Earth's magnetic field, they can trigger geomagnetic storms. These storms can result in striking auroral displays, sometimes visible as far as the mid-latitudes.

According to NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center, the highest anticipated Kp index for Dec. 24 to Dec. 25 is Kp 5.33.

NOAA has issued a G1 geomagnetic storm warning for Dec. 25 due to the anticipated arrival of the incoming CME. Elevated geomagnetic conditions could enhance auroras at high latitudes, such as northern Michigan and Maine.

Northern Hemisphere aurora forecast courtesy of the Met Office

Wednesday, Dec. 25: Christmas geomagnetic storm watch!

The sun may be giving some skywatchers a gift this Christmas with a hightened northern lights watch for stargazers across the northernmost U.S. states, as well as north upper Midwest states. A class G1 geomagnetic storm watch is still in effect due to the arrival of solar winds from a coronal mass ejection (CME) that erupted from the sun on Dec. 23. As we said yesterday, such storms can spawn amazing auroral displays, sometimes visible as far as the mid-latitudes.

According to NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center, the Kp index for Dec. 24 to Dec. 25 reached Kp 4.

NOAA issued a G1 geomagnetic storm warning for Dec. 25 on Monday, Dec. 23 after the CME erupted during a "moderate" M8.9 solar flare from a sunspot region called AR 3932.

Northern Hemisphere aurora forecast courtesy of the Met Office

Thursday, Dec. 26: Boxing Day auroras possible

The chance of auroras for Christmas appears to have fizzled as a potential G1 geomagnetic storm from a solar flare and coronal mass ejection earlier this week did not materialize. However, there is still a chance that the CME may be late, with chances for northern lights over the northern U.K.

"A Coronal Mass Ejection is likely to glance Earth on Wednesday night into Thursday (Christmas Day into Boxing Day), potentially giving aurora over Scotland, with a chance that aurora could extend more widely across Northern Ireland and Northern England and similar geomagnetic latitudes," the U.K. Meteorology Office reported today. "Aurora is likely to be declining by Thursday night, but with a slight chance of reaching northern Scotland."

Northern Hemisphere aurora forecast courtesy of the Met Office

Friday, Dec. 27 and the Weekend: Christmas solar flare

The sun fired off a series of intense solar flares on Christmas Day, Dec. 25, and some of them may amplify the changes of enhanced auroars over the weekend and days leading into New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.

According the U.K. Meteorology Office's space weather center, solar activity is fairly low, with up to 14 sunspot regions on the Earth-facing side of the sun.

"The current southern hemisphere far side [of the sun] is proving a fertile breeding ground for Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs), with a good many observed through the Christmas period heading south and later southeast from the far side, implying the presence of a large and active region here - potentially of note into the New Year period," MET officials wrote in an update.

Northern Hemisphere aurora forecast courtesy of the Met Office

Monday, Dec. 30: Powerful geomagnetic storm could spark auroras deep into mid-latitudes tonight and tomorrow

Aurora alert!

We could be in for a New Year's aurora treat with northern lights potentially visible deep into mid-latitudes tonight and tomorrow (Dec. 30 to Dec. 31).

Due to an incoming solar storm, also known as a coronal mass ejection (CME), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center issued a G3 (strong) geomagnetic storm warning for Dec. 31.

This is great news for those wishing to see the northern lights as the predicted geomagnetic storm could spark auroras as far south as Illinois and Oregon (around 50° latitude).

Read more: Aurora alert: Powerful geomagnetic storm could spark northern lights as far south as Illinois tonight and tomorrow

Tues.-Wed., Dec. 31-Jan. 1: Coronal mass ejection reaches Earth

A coronal mass ejection spawned by the massive X1.1 solar flare on Dec. 29 has reached Earth and is expected to amp up the northern light overnight on Dec. 31 and Jan. 1, with space weather experts maintaining a G3 geomagnetic storm watch through the New Year.

"The anticipated CME that launched from the Sun on 29 Dec has arrived! SWPC forecast timing was very good as the shock arrival at the leading edge of the coronal mass ejection (CME) arrived at our solar wind observatory - NOAA DSCOVR and NASA ACE by 10:56am EST and reached Earth shortly afterwards," the Space Weather Prediction Center wrote in an update today. "As CME progression continues, the main magnetic “cloud” embedded within the CME should arrive and we anticipate G1-G3 potential to continue into the evening and early night hours across the U.S.."

Read more: Aurora alert: Powerful geomagnetic storm could spark northern lights as far south as Illinois tonight and tomorrow

Wednesday, Jan. 1: Northern lights ring in 2025 with stunning light shows

While many celebrated New Year's Eve with bursts of glittering fireworks, Earth joined the festivities with a natural display of its own: the northern lights.

A coronal mass ejection (CME) struck Earth's magnetic field on Dec. 31 at 11:21 a.m. EST (16:21 GMT), sparking minor geomagnetic storm conditions and painting the night sky with vivid aurora displays as far south as California, U.S, Austria, and Germany.

Read more: New Year's northern lights delight as powerful solar storms spark auroras across central US and Europe (photos)

And it's not over yet! The sun started 2025 with a bang, hurling a new CME toward Earth, which could trigger more northern lights around Jan. 3 and Jan. 4, according to space weather physicist Tamitha Skov. "Our Sun rings in the New Year! We just had a new #solarstorm launch from Region 3939 in the Earth-Strike Zone," Skov wrote in a post on X.

Thursday, Jan. 2: High-latitude northern lights likely and mid-latitude auroras possible tonight

2025 is off to a great start in terms of northern lights and more shows could be on the horizon!

Several solar storms hit Earth over New Year's. For more than 9 hours, Earth's magnetosphere was rattled by powerful (G3 and G4) geomagnetic storms, producing widespread auroras deep into mid-latitudes.

As the current geomagnetic storm conditions begin to wane, aurora enthusiasts in high-latitude regions, such as northern Canada and Alaska, still have a strong chance of witnessing stunning auroral displays tonight. According to NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center, the Kp index is forecasted to peak at 4 overnight.

Solar activity remains high, with several Earth-facing sunspot regions posing a potential risk of releasing solar storms, also known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs) in the coming days. Stay tuned for updates.

Colossal Earth-facing coronal hole detected

A large coronal hole has been detected on the sun and Earth is in the firing line.

This is good news for aurora chasers as coronal holes release high-speed solar wind streams. When these particles interact with Earth's magnetic field they increase geomagnetic activity which in turn can spark intense auroras.

Enhanced solar wind could arrive within about 3 days according to SpaceWeatherLive.

Aurora forecast for tonight and the weekend: Minor geomagnetic storm conditions predicted

Aurora chasers could be in for yet another treat this weekend as NOAA has issued another geomagnetic storm watch, this time for minor G1 conditions from Jan. 4 to Jan. 5. Northern lights are expected at high latitudes.

According to NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center, the Kp index is forecasted to reach highs of 4.67 over the weekend.

The elevated conditions are due to two coronal holes spewing high-speed solar wind toward Earth. When directed at Earth these solar wind streams can interact with our planet's magnetic field and trigger geomagnetic storm conditions.

Northern Hemisphere aurora forecast courtesy of the Met Office

Monday, Jan. 6: Great chance of auroras for observers at high latitudes

Geomagnetic activity remains unsettled which is great news for aurora chasers at high latitudes.

According to NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center, the Kp index is forecasted to reach highs of 4 over the next 24 hours.

These heightened conditions may result in visible auroras across the northern United States, while in the UK, they could be observed in the far north of Scotland.

According to the UK Met Office, Earth might experience a glancing blow from an incoming solar storm, or coronal mass ejection (CME), predicted to arrive late on January 6 or early January 7 (UTC). Should this occur, minor G1 geomagnetic storm conditions are possible.

Tuesday, Jan. 7: Unsettled conditions with strong chance of solar flares

The northern lights forecast looks promising for high-latitude observers tonight. According to NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center, the Kp index is predicted to peak at 2.67 over the next 24 hours.

However, more unsettled space weather could be on the way. A large, active sunspot region is rotating into Earth's view and showing signs of intense activity. Just yesterday, sunspot group AR3947 unleashed a powerful M-class solar flare, accompanied by what appears to be an Earth-directed coronal mass ejection (CME).

"Region 3947 launches what looks to be an Earth-directed #solarstorm during an M4.8-flare! It is too early to tell without seeing coronagraph images, but the dimming regions around the eruption look promising (see the dark regions developing in the animation below). Stay tuned." Space Weather Physicist Tamitha Skov wrote in a post on X.

When CMEs, also known as solar storms, hit Earth's magnetic field they can trigger geomagnetic storm conditions that can lead to dramatic aurora displays.

CMEs often accompany solar flares, but not always. Both are caused by magnetic disturbances in the sun's atmosphere, typically near active regions like sunspots. Solar flares are bursts of electromagnetic energy that travel at light speed, while CMEs are slower eruptions of plasma and magnetic fields that can take days to reach Earth. A flare may occur without a CME if no plasma is expelled, and CMEs can happen without a significant flare during gradual magnetic shifts.

According to SpaceWeatherLive's latest predictions, there's a strong chance we’ll see more powerful solar flares today. Here are the current probabilities:

M-class solar flare: 70%

X-class solar flare: 25%

Stay tuned for potential solar activity updates!

Wednesday, Jan. 8: Auroras mainly confined to high latitudes as geomagnetic activity wanes (for now)

Currently, solar activity is relatively low, with no Earth-directed solar storms. As such, tonight's northern lights will most likely be confined to latitudes above the Arctic Circle.

According to NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center, the Kp index is predicted to peak at 2.33 over the next 24 hours.

We may experience a brief uptick in solar wind speed around Jan. 10 - Jan. 11, according to the UK Met Office. This is due to a small coronal hole in the sun, allowing solar wind to escape more readily into space.

Thursday, Jan. 9: Northern lights confined to high latitudes as geomagnetic activity remains relatively quiet

Relatively quiet geomagnetic activity will confine the northern lights primarily to high latitudes above the Arctic Circle tonight. According to NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center, the Kp index is forecast to peak at 1.67 over the next 24 hours.

A brief uptick in solar wind speed is expected around Jan. 10–11, according to the UK Met Office. This is due to a small coronal hole in the sun, allowing solar wind to escape more readily into space. The elevated solar wind could trigger enhanced auroras at high latitudes.

The chance of powerful solar flares is decreasing as the once-active sunspot AR3947, which crackled with activity earlier this week, begins to decay. No significant sunspot regions have yet emerged over the sun's eastern limb (the left side as seen in imagery from the Solar Dynamics Observatory image below).

We’ll continue to monitor for any significant solar events that could lead to stronger northern lights displays. Stay tuned!

Aurora forecast for tonight and the weekend: Relatively quiet with possible unsettled conditions

Over the weekend relatively quiet geomagnetic activity will confine the northern lights primarily to high latitudes above the Arctic Circle. According to NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center, the Kp index is forecast to peak at 3.33 over the weekend.

According to the UK Met Office, aurora activity may slightly increase on Jan.10 due to the influence of a high-speed solar wind stream emanating from a small coronal hole. A possible filament eruption from the sun might enhance geomagnetic conditions on Jan. 12.

Although things are currently looking rather quiet on the sun, two emerging sunspot regions over the sun's eastern limb might mix things up a bit should they grow rapidly in the coming days.

Thursday Jan. 16: Good chance of auroras at high latitudes with possible elevated conditions in the coming days

There is a good chance of seeing the northern lights at high latitudes tonight. According to NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center, the Kp index is predicted to peak at 2.33 over the next 24 hours.

Aurora hunting conditions could improve in the coming days due to a giant Earth-facing coronal hole. This is great news for aurora chasers as coronal holes release high-speed solar wind streams. When these particles interact with Earth's magnetic field, they increase geomagnetic activity, which can spark intense auroras.

Enhanced solar wind could arrive within about 3 days according to SpaceWeatherLive.

Aurora forecast for tonight and the weekend: Unsettled conditions possible

The northern lights will be confined primarily to high latitudes this weekend due to relatively quiet geomagnetic activity but an Earth-facing coronal hole could elevate conditions.

According to NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center, the Kp index is forecast to peak at 3.67 over the weekend.

Although there are currently no incoming solar storms, the ongoing coronal hole influence is expected to enhance solar winds over the weekend which could lead to unsettled geomagnetic activity with isolated active intervals according to the UK Met Office. Aurora chasers keep your eyes peeled as we could experience minor geomagnetic storm conditions around Jan. 17 and Jan. 18 according to the UK Met Office.

Northern Hemisphere aurora forecast courtesy of the Met Office

Monday, Jan. 20: Good chance of northern lights at high latitudes tonight

There is a good chance of seeing the northern lights at high latitudes tonight. According to NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center, the Kp index is forecast to peak at 2.67 over the next 24 hours.

Geomagnetic conditions have been unsettled over the last few days due to elevated solar winds from an Earth-facing coronal hole. These conditions will ease from Jan. 21 onward as the coronal hole rotates away from Earth.

Tuesday, Jan. 21: Waning geomagnetic activity confines auroras to high latitudes

Mainly quiet to unsettled geomagnetic activity confines the northern lights primarily to northern latitudes tonight.

According to NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center, the Kp index is forecast to peak at 2.67 over the next 24 hours.

Geomagnetic conditions have been unsettled over the last few days due to elevated solar winds from an Earth-facing coronal hole. These conditions will ease from today as the coronal hole rotates away from Earth.

Potential solar storm eruption may trigger geomagnetic storm activity in the coming days

The sun erupted with an M-class solar flare, the second most powerful class of solar flare today. The flare peaked at 5:39 a.m. ET (1039 GMT) and was accompanied by a coronal mass ejection (CME), also known as a solar storm.

CMEs are vast plumes of plasma and magnetic field from the sun. If they strike Earth and the conditions are right, they can trigger geomagnetic storms, which in turn lead to spectacular aurora displays.

There’s a slight chance of minor G1-level geomagnetic storms through Jan. 24 according to the UK Met Office. However, forecasters are still waiting for an analysis to see if the incoming CME has any Earth-directed components. We'll keep you informed of any significant developments!

Wednesday, Jan. 22: Earth-directed solar storm could supercharge auroras by Jan. 24

Aurora chasers, get ready — things are looking promising! An incoming solar storm could light up the skies with northern lights potentially visible as far south as northern Michigan and Maine on Jan. 24.

NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center forecasts that the Kp index will peak at 2 over the next 24 hours, and rise to 4.33 by Jan. 24.

The sun unleashed the solar storm, or coronal mass ejection (CME), during an eruptive M-class solar flare on Jan. 21. According to NASA models, part of the CME is expected to graze Earth on Jan. 24, potentially sparking minor G1 geomagnetic storm conditions — ideal for aurora displays beyond the regular high latitude range.

Keep an eye on the skies and your aurora alerts!

Thursday, Jan. 23: Incoming solar storm could supercharge auroras this week

A solar storm, known as a coronal mass ejection (CME), erupted from the sun on Jan. 21 and is expected to deliver a glancing blow to Earth.

This event could trigger minor geomagnetic storm activity, potentially producing northern lights visible at higher latitudes, such as northern Michigan and Maine.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects the Kp index to peak at 5.33 within the next 48 hours, with G1 geomagnetic storm conditions possible tomorrow night (Jan. 24) between 10:00 p.m. and 4:00 a.m. EDT (0300-0900 GMT on Jan. 25).

Northern Hemisphere aurora forecast courtesy of the Met Office

Friday, Jan. 24: Possible geomagnetic storm could spark auroras at mid-latitudes

All aboard the solar storm train! Two coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are on track to strike Earth with glancing blows on Jan. 24-25.

The first CME was released during an M-class solar flare eruption on Jan. 21 and the second from a filament eruption on Jan. 22.

If both CMEs land a blow their combined result could be minor (G1) to moderate (G2) geomagnetic storm conditions according to Spaceweather.com. Skywatchers could see northern lights as far south as New York and Idaho if G2 conditions are reached.

Read more: Aurora alert: Incoming solar storms could spark northern lights as far south as New York and Idaho tonight

Monday, Jan. 27: Quiet geomagnetic activity confines northern lights to high latitudes

Geomagnetic activity is expected to remain quiet over the next few days, with northern lights primarily visible at high latitudes, especially above the Arctic Circle.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects the Kp index to peak at 1.67 within the next 24 hours.

Things could be looking up on Jan. 29 as a new coronal mass ejection (CME) could land Earth with a glancing blow and trigger minor (G1) class geomagnetic storm conditions, according to Spaceweathercom.

Tuesday, Jan. 28: Incoming coronal mass ejection may ignite stunning auroras tonight

Enhanced geomagnetic activity is expected tonight, with northern lights likely visible at high latitudes, particularly above the Arctic Circle. Earth is anticipated to experience a glancing impact from a coronal mass ejection (CME) released on January 26, which could spark minor (G1) geomagnetic storm conditions, according to Spaceweather.com.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects the Kp index to peak at 2.67 within the next 24 hours.

Wednesday, Jan. 29: Northern lights remain confined to high latitudes tonight but unsettled conditions could spark more intense displays

Unsettled geomagnetic activity is expected tonight with a slight chance of minor G1 geomagnetic storm conditions should any incoming coronal mass ejections (CMEs) land Earth with a glancing blow.

The northern lights remain confined to high latitudes but could reach mid-latitudes if geomagnetic storm conditions intensify.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects the Kp index to peak at 2.67 within the next 24 hours.

Thursday, Jan. 30: Auroa conditions are quiet tonight but may pick up in the coming days

While geomagnetic conditions remain quiet for now, keeping the northern lights confined to high latitudes, activity could intensify in the coming days.

A giant coronal hole is currently aiming aurora-sparking solar wind directly at Earth. The incoming solar wind is expected to arrive around Jan. 31 to Feb. 1. In doing so it could potentially spark minor (G1) geomagnetic storm conditions which could see auroras reach as far south as northern Michigan and Maine.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects the Kp index to peak at 2.67 within the next 24 hours. Aurora chasers make sure those cameras are charged! We could be seeing Kp's of 4.33 by Feb. 1!

Aurora forecast for tonight and the weekend: Minor geomagnetic storm could supercharge northern lights this weekend

Heads up aurora chasers!

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects the Kp index to peak at 4.67 over the weekend. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

A giant coronal hole is currently aiming aurora-sparking solar wind directly at Earth. The incoming solar wind is expected to arrive around Jan. 31 to Feb. 1. In doing so it could potentially spark minor (G1) geomagnetic storm conditions which could see auroras reach as far south as northern Michigan and Maine.

Keep your cameras charged and your eyes on the skies!

Read more: Aurora alert! Gigantic 500,000-mile 'hole' in the sun's atmosphere could spark impressive northern lights tonight and tomorrow (photo)

Northern Hemisphere aurora forecast courtesy of the Met Office

Monday, Feb. 3: Conditions remain favorable for northern lights

Earth is still experiencing the effects of a high-speed solar wind stream from not one but two giant coronal holes. The chances of seeing the northern lights at high latitudes remain favorable.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects the Kp index to peak at 4 over the next 24 hours. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Quiet to unsettled geomagnetic activity conditions are expected over the next couple of days as Earth moves out of the rapid solar wind stream.

Everything could change if Earth-facing sunspot 3981 unleashes a coronal mass ejection (CME) toward our planet. The rapidly growing sunspot is crackling with powerful solar flares, including a potent M8.8-class flare that erupted last night at 10:58 p.m. EDT (0358 GMT). Space weather forecasters are closely monitoring SOHO coronagraphs to determine whether the blast was accompanied by a CME.

Tuesday, Feb. 4: Aurora spotting chances remain good for observers at high latitudes

There is a good chance of seeing the northern lights from high-latitude regions tonight as geomagnetic activity remains unsettled.

Earth is still feeling the effects of the fast solar wind stream from a coronal hole but solar wind speeds are gradually slowing down and will likely return to normal by Feb. 5.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 3.67 over the next 24 hours. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Wednesday, Feb. 5: Northern lights remain confined to high latitudes as geomagnetic activity slows

There is still a good chance of seeing the northern lights at high latitudes despite waning geomagnetic activity conditions.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 2.33 over the next 24 hours. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Thursday, Feb. 6: Unsettled geomagnetic activity mainly confines northern lights to high latitudes for now...

Generally quiet to unsettled conditions mainly confine the northern lights to high latitudes tonight, though this could change due to incoming solar storms.

Two coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are in the forecast, but their impact on Earth is uncertain. One CME from Feb. 2 might deliver a glancing blow on Feb. 6, while another from Feb. 5 has a small chance of arriving on Feb. 7-8. A high-speed solar wind stream is also expected around Feb.9. For the most part, geomagnetic activity should stay quiet to unsettled (Kp 0-3), but if a CME arrives, we could see some G1-G2 (Kp 5-6) storming. There’s also a slight chance of a minor storm (Kp 5) if the high-speed stream kicks in. Aurora chasers, watch this space!

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 3.67 over the next 24 hours. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Aurora forecast for tonight and the weekend: Good chance of northern lights

If you're hoping to catch the northern lights this weekend, there’s some excitement in the forecast! While geomagnetic conditions have been mostly quiet, a couple of CMEs are coming.

A weak glancing blow from a Feb. 5 eruption might reach Earth late Friday into Saturday (Feb 7-8), bringing a slight chance of auroral activity. The real potential comes later in the weekend, as a high-speed solar wind stream is expected to arrive on Sunday, Feb. 9.

This could push geomagnetic conditions from unsettled to active levels, with occasional bursts of minor (G1) to moderate (G2) storming possible, according to the UK Met Office. If everything lines up just right, auroras could be visible at higher latitudes, with a chance of extending further south for brief periods.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 3 over the next 24 hours. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Meanwhile, solar activity remains high! Sunspot region 3981 has already fired off over 20 M-class flares this week, with two nearly reaching X-class. Could we be in for some more powerful solar flares over the weekend? Maybe! We'll have to wait and find out.

If you're in a northern location, keep an eye on space weather updates and be ready to head outside, especially on Sunday night. And as always — dark skies away from city lights will give you the best view.

Monday, Feb. 10: Great chance of Arctic auroras as solar wind picks up

Heads up aurora chasers, elevated geomagnetic activity could enhance northern lights at high latitudes.

Earth has entered a stream of fast-flowing solar wind emitted from a recent coronal hole in the sun's atmosphere. It has already sparked minor G1-class geomagnetic storm conditions, with more activity expected as Earth moves deeper into the stream.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 4 over the next 24 hours. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

According to Spaceweather.com, Arctic auroras are likely on Feb. 10 and Feb. 11.

Northern Hemisphere aurora forecast courtesy of the Met Office

Tuesday, Feb. 11: Good aurora activity continues for the next few days

Continued elevated geomagnetic activity may enhance northern lights at high latitudes in the coming days!

Earth continues to be buffeted by a fast-flowing solar wind stream emitted from a recent coronal hole in the sun's atmosphere. It has already sparked minor G1-class geomagnetic storm conditions, with more activity expected as Earth moves deeper into the stream. Further coronal hole enhancement is likely around Feb. 12 and 13 according to the UK Met Office.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 3.67 over the next 24 hours. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Northern Hemisphere aurora forecast courtesy of the Met Office

Wednesday, Feb. 12: Chance of northern lights remains high due to ongoing solar wind streams

Great news aurora chasers! Geomagnetic activity is on the rise, boosting the chances of dazzling northern lights at high latitudes!

A fast solar wind stream from a coronal hole continues to influence Earth's space weather, with wind speeds ranging from 500-600 km/s.

Geomagnetic conditions have been Unsettled to Active (Kp 3-4), and another wave of fast solar wind is expected to arrive on Feb. 12-13, potentially sparking G1 Minor Storms on the evening of Feb. 13.

No Earth-directed CMEs were observed, but a new solar wind stream arriving on Feb. 14 may bring enhanced auroras, especially in Arctic regions. Stay tuned for potential Valentine's Day northern lights!

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 4 over the next 24 hours. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Read more: Aurora Alert — Geomagnetic storm could bring northern lights as far south as Michigan and Maine this week

Thursday, Feb. 13: Minor geomagnetic storm watch in place due to incoming solar wind stream

Geomagnetic activity continues to rise, boosting the chances of dazzling northern lights at high latitudes!

Geomagnetic conditions have been unsettled to active (Kp 3-4), due to various solar wind streams and another wave of fast solar wind is expected to arrive on Feb. 13, potentially sparking G1 Minor Storms on the evening of Feb. 13 into Feb. 14.

Stay tuned for potential Valentine's Day northern lights!

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 4.67 over the next 24 hours. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Read more: Valentine's Day Aurora Alert — Geomagnetic storm could bring northern lights as far south as Michigan and Maine tonight and tomorrow

Friday, Feb. 14: Minor geomagnetic storms expected over Valentine's Day weekend

Aurora watchers could have a great Valentine's Day weekend ahead of them as geomagnetic activity continues to rise, generating colorful northern lights at high latitudes!

Auroras have already been spotted over Iceland, SpaceWeather.com reports. Chances of minor to moderate radio blackouts will continue through the weekend as streams of solar wind flow from a hole in the sun's atmosphere towards Earth.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 4.67 over the weekend. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Read more: Valentine's Day Aurora Alert — Geomagnetic storm could bring northern lights as far south as Michigan and Maine tonight and tomorrow

Monday, Feb. 18: Only small chances of minor geomagnetic storms

There are only small chances for minor geomagnetic storms on Monday (Feb. 18), as no significant streams of solar wind or coronal mass ejections are headed towards Earth.

While there is still a small chance of northern lights (aurora borealis) at high latitudes, low space weather activity means they could be rare. "There are no CMEs currently assessed as Earth directed, however a couple of weak ejections from 14-15 Feb may pass nearby, with glancing influence possible" on Feb. 18, the U.K.'s Met Office forecasted.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 3.67 over the next 24 hours. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Tuesday, Feb. 19: Aurora activity expected to subside over next 24 hours

Overnight on Tuesday (Feb. 18), some aurora watchers at mid-latitudes were fortunate enough to catch a glimpse of the northern lights much farther south than usual. "Beautiful auroras made an appearance near Lewisburg, Pennsylvania," wrote one photographer on X.

However, aurora activity and geomagnetic effects are expected to subside over the next 24 hours as effects from a glancing coronal mass ejection (CME) subside. "As solar wind speeds slowly wane and the recent CME (Coronal Mass Ejection) effects gradually diminish, aurora activity is expected to be confined to high latitudes," the U.K.'s Met Office wrote on Wednesday (Feb. 19).

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 5 over the next 24 hours. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Thursday, Feb. 20: Northern lights confined to high latitudes for now but possible CME could spark activity later in the week

Geomagnetic activity is currently low with northern lights confined to high latitudes.

However, things could pick up on Feb. 23 when a coronal mass ejection (CME) released from the sun on Feb. 19 may deliver Earth with a glancing blow, according to the UK Met Office. If the CME hits Earth it could trigger minor G1 level geomagnetic storms and subsequent auroras stretching further south toward northern Michigan and Maine.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 2 over the next 24 hours. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Aurora forecast for tonight and the weekend: Quiet with a chance of minor storms

Right now, geomagnetic activity is on the quieter side, meaning the northern lights are mostly sticking to high-latitude regions. But that could change soon! A coronal mass ejection (CME) that erupted from the sun on Feb. 19 is predicted to brush past Earth on Feb. 23, according to the UK Met Office. If this solar storm makes contact, we could see a minor G1 geomagnetic storm, potentially pushing auroras farther south — possibly reaching northern Michigan and Maine.

For now, NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center expects the Kp index to remain low, peaking at 1.67 over the next 24 hours. But space weather can be unpredictable, so if you’re hoping for a northern lights show, keep an eye on NOAA’s 3-day forecast for the latest updates!

Northern Hemisphere aurora forecast courtesy of the Met Office

Monday, Feb. 24: Unsettled geomagnetic activity conditions could spark aurora shows tonight

Solar activity has recently picked up with a strong X-class solar flare erupting yesterday (Feb. 24) While a coronal mass ejection accompanied the eruption, unfortunately for aurora chasers, it is unlikely to affect Earth as the CME was fired off the far Western limb. However, another CME is expected to arrive on Feb. 24, with a slight chance of triggering geomagnetic storms.

According to the U.K. Met Office, geomagnetic activity is forecast to be quiet to unsettled, with minor to moderate geomagnetic storms possible on Feb. 24.

Aurora visibility remains uncertain but could briefly reach mid-latitudes if geomagnetic activity peaks. Watch for updates, especially if solar wind conditions intensify.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 3 over the next 24 hours. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Tuesday, Feb. 25: Northern lights primarily confined to high latitudes as geomagnetic activity wanes

Geomagnetic activity remains relatively quiet, confining the northern lights primarily to high latitudes.

There is a possibility of G1 (Kp5) and a lower chance of G2 (Kp6) geomagnetic storms on Feb. 25, driven by weak coronal mass ejection impacts and potential effects from a coronal hole. After this, geomagnetic activity is expected to diminish to quiet or unsettled levels (Kp1-3) through Feb. 27.

Things could be looking up later this week as a high-speed solar wind stream could influence auroras from Feb. 28 when wind seeds of 600 km/s are possible, according to the U.K. Met Office.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 2.67 over the next 24 hours. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Wednesday, Feb. 26: Northern lights may be relatively quiet tonight but activity could be ramping up soon

Tonight’s aurora forecast suggests mostly background levels, with northern lights mainly confined to high latitudes but things could be looking up later in the week.

In the past 24 hours solar activity has been moderate, with multiple sunspot regions and some flares, but no significant Earth-directed CMEs. Solar wind speeds have weakened but are expected to increase again by Feb. 27-28, bringing a slight chance of G1 (minor) geomagnetic storms later in the week. In addition, a large 'hole' has opened up in the sun's atmosphere and is currently facing Earth, aiming aurora-sparking solar wind right at us.

The incoming solar wind is expected to arrive around March 1. In doing so it could potentially spark minor (G1) geomagnetic storm conditions which could see auroras reach as far south as northern Michigan and Maine.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 2.67 over the next 24 hours. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

While tonight’s aurora prospects are modest, skywatchers in high-latitude regions should stay alert for brief displays, especially in clearer skies. Stay tuned for stronger activity as solar wind conditions evolve through the week.

Thursday, Feb. 27: Elevated aurora conditions possible tonight and tomorrow

Enhanced northern lights may stretch deeper into mid-latitudes tonight as Earth experiences the effects of an incoming high-speed solar wind stream. This wind originates from a coronal hole on the sun’s surface and is expected to push speeds beyond 600 km/s, enhancing the chances of auroral activity.

In addition to the solar wind, recent coronal mass ejections (CMEs) may play a role. While none are directly Earth-bound, a couple of glancing blows from filament eruptions remain possible. These could introduce brief periods of geomagnetic unrest, potentially leading to minor storm conditions (G1) tonight and tomorrow.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 4 over the next 24 hours. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Aurora chasers keep your eyes on the skies, we may be in for a treat.

Northern Hemisphere aurora forecast courtesy of the Met Office

Geomagnetic storm alert: Strong G2 conditions currently being observed

Earth is currently experiencing strong G2 Geomagnetic storm conditions (Kp 6). The threshold was reached at 06:10 EST (1110 GMT) on Feb. 27.

Northern lights could stretch into mid-latitudes during the current G2 geomagnetic storm.

Promising aurora conditions for tonight so keep your eyes on the skies

Elevated geomagnetic conditions could continue through the night, so aurora chasers, get those camera batteries charged. We could be in for a northern lights delight tonight!

If you're interested in tracking space weather and knowing when and where to spot auroras, download a space weather app that provides forecasts based on your location. One option I use is "My Aurora Forecast & Alerts," available for both iOS and Android. However, any similar app should work well. I also use the "Space Weather Live" app, which is available on iOS and Android, to get a deeper understanding of whether the current space weather conditions are favorable for aurora sightings.

Aurora forecast for tonight and the weekend: Unsettled conditions could bring minor geomagnetic storms

The northern lights may put on a show tonight (Feb. 28), but the window for strong auroras is narrowing as geomagnetic activity is expected to decline gradually through the weekend.

If you’re in northern locations such as Canada, Alaska, or Scandinavia, keep an eye on the sky tonight for the best chance at catching the northern lights before activity wanes.

By March 1, geomagnetic activity will taper off, though there’s still a small chance for minor (G1) geomagnetic storms due to elevated solar wind conditions from an Earth-facing coronal hole. As we head into March 2, the Kp index is forecasted to drop further, reducing aurora chances.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 3.67 over the next 24 hours. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

As always, clear, dark skies away from city lights will give you the best viewing experience.

Happy aurora hunting! and Happy weekend!

Geomagnetic storm alert: Minor G1 levels reached

Here we go again! Earth is currently experiencing minor G1 geomagnetic storm levels. The threshold was reached at 9:59 a.m. EST (1459 GMT). Kp levels of 5 are currently being observed. All we need now is for the sun to go down so we can head out northern lights hunting!

Monday, March 3: Partially Earth-directed solar storm incoming! Aurora chasers keep your eyes on the skies

Great news, aurora chasers! A partially Earth-directed solar storm is on its way, and if it hits just right, we could see geomagnetic storm activity reaching G1 to G2 levels by March 5, according to space weather physicist Tamitha Skov.

Until then, northern lights will mainly be confined to high latitudes primarily above the Arctic Circle.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 2.67 over the next 24 hours. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Tuesday, March 4: Great chance of northern lights tonight and tomorrow

Incoming!

If you’re hoping to catch the northern lights, there is a chance of increased activity late tonight, March 4, and into March 5. A minor to moderate geomagnetic storm (G1/G2) is possible due to a glancing blow from a coronal mass ejection (CME) that erupted on March 1. High-latitude locations such as northern Europe, Canada, and the northern U.S. may have the best viewing opportunities if the storm strengthens.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 5 over the next 24 hours. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Wednesday, March 5: Slightly elevated geomagnetic activity continues

Enhanced geomagnetic activity from an incoming solar storm could continue to ignite northern lights tonight. According to the U.K. Met Office, a coronal mass ejection (CME) that erupted from the sun on March 1 is likely delivering a glancing blow to Earth, with its effects expected to persist through today.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 3 over the next 24 hours. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Thursday, March 6: Fairly quiet geomagnetic activity for now but conditions may improve by the weekend

Currently, solar wind speeds are slightly elevated but declining according to the U.K. Met Office, leading to mostly quiet to unsettled geomagnetic conditions, which are not particularly favorable for strong northern lights. However, the outlook improves later this week.

Around March 8 and 9, Earth is predicted to be impacted by a high-speed solar wind stream from a coronal hole facing our planet. The elevated solar wind conditions could spark geomagnetic storm conditions, with a chance of G1 (minor) to isolated G2 (moderate) geomagnetic storms. If conditions align, this could bring auroras to mid-latitude locations during peak activity!

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 2.33 over the next 24 hours. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Northern lights forecast for tonight and the weekend: Geomagnetic storms possible due to Earth-facing coronal hole

A giant coronal hole in the sun's atmosphere is currently spewing high-speed solar wind toward Earth. This is great news for aurora chasers as the emerging stream should reach our planet by March 9-10, potentially sparking G1 (minor) geomagnetic storm conditions and dazzling northern lights at high latitudes.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 4.67 over the weekend. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Monday, March 10: Elevated conditions could bring even more auroras tonight

Wow, what a weekend!

Enhanced auroras were visible deep into mid-latitudes as Earth was hit by a fast stream of solar wind, which appeared to hide a stealthy solar storm within. One hit Earth on March 8 and sparked more than 10 hours of geomagnetic storms, according to Spaceweather.com.

Though things are quieting down, we could still be in for another treat tonight due to continued elevated conditions.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 4 over the next 24 hours. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Tuesday, March 11: Aurora activity nearing background levels but incoming solar winds could elevate conditions

After a flurry of activity from the northern lights, things seem to be quieting down for now.

According to the U.K. Met Office, the auroral oval is nearing background levels through March 11-12. However, an onset of fast solar wind may bring slight enhancements on March 13.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 3.67 over the next 24 hours. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Wednesday, March 12: Slightly elevated conditions continue, good news for aurora chasers!

Persistent fast solar winds are intensifying geomagnetic activity, driving promising auroral activity at high latitudes. Aurora chasers, keep your eyes on the skies tonight as we could be in for yet another show.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 3.67 over the next 24 hours. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Thursday, March 13: Elevated geomagnetic conditions continue, more auroras could be on their way tonight

More G1 (minor) geomagnetic storms could be on the horizon as Earth continues to be buffeted by a high-speed solar wind released from a coronal hole on the sun's surface. Strong northern lights displays possible at high latitudes.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 3.67 over the next 24 hours. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

If you're interested in tracking space weather and knowing when and where to spot auroras, download a space weather app that provides forecasts based on your location. One option I use is "My Aurora Forecast & Alerts," available for both iOS and Android. However, any similar app should work well. I also use the "Space Weather Live" app, which is available on iOS and Android, to get a deeper understanding of whether the current space weather conditions are favorable for aurora sightings.

Aurora forecast for tonight and the weekend: Stormy times ahead could spark impressive northern lights at high latitudes

The aurora forecast for the weekend looks promising if the recent conditions are anything to go by!

Geomagnetic activity really picked up throughout the night, reaching G2 (moderate) geomagnetic storm levels at 9:42 p.m. EDT (0142 GMT). The sky decided to put on quite the show for those lucky skywatchers in the right place at the right time. Aurora chaser, Rj Rolden, captured an aurora corona overhead and the total lunar eclipse.

"Are you kidding me??? Whoaaaaa!!! I am one lucky guy who witnessed the perfect duo!!!" Rolden wrote in a post on X.

Earth continues to be buffeted by a high-speed solar wind released from a coronal hole on the sun's surface. Strong northern lights display have been visible at high latitudes.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 4 over the next 24 hours. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

If you're interested in tracking space weather and knowing when and where to spot auroras, download a space weather app that provides forecasts based on your location. One option I use is "My Aurora Forecast & Alerts," available for both iOS and Android. However, any similar app should work well. I also use the "Space Weather Live" app, which is available on iOS and Android, to get a deeper understanding of whether the current space weather conditions are favorable for aurora sightings.

Monday, March 17: All quiet for St. Patrick's Day

Unfortunately, quiet solar conditions mean St. Patrick's Day revelers won't be seeing any green in the skies tonight  — at least not from the northern lights.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 3.67 over the next 24 hours. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

According to NOAA, no radio blackouts have been observed in the past 24 hours, and there no active regions on the sun that we can expect to create geomagnetic storms in our neck of the cosmic woods. There is only a 5% chance over the next three days of any minor activity.

Still the U.K.'s Met Office says there is a chance that auroras could be seen as far south as northern Scotland, but geomagnetic activity is expected to be quiet.

Tuesday, March 18: Weak CMEs could produce weak geomagnetic storms this week

Things are still fairly quiet on the aurora front, but activity could pick up in the next few days thanks to some coronal mass ejections headed our way.

Minor G1 geomagnetic storms are possible on Thursday (March 20) thanks to four coronal mass ejections (CMEs) that exploded from the sun on Tuesday (March 17), according to the U.K.'s Met Office. These could make the northern lights visible as far south as northern Scotland later this week, but are expected to only make weak, glancing blows with Earth.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 3.67 over the next 24 hours. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

If you're interested in tracking space weather and knowing when and where to spot auroras, download a space weather app that provides forecasts based on your location. One option I use is "My Aurora Forecast & Alerts," available for both iOS and Android. However, any similar app should work well. I also use the "Space Weather Live" app, which is available on iOS and Android, to get a deeper understanding of whether the current space weather conditions are favorable for aurora sightings.

Wednesday, March 19: Chance of weak geomagnetic storms this week

Things are still fairly quiet on the solar weather front, but there is a chance for weak or glancing interactions with up to three coronal mass ejections between today (March 19) and Friday (March 21).

Minor (G1) geomagnetic storms are possible on Thursday (March 20) as these three coronal mass ejections (CMEs) make their way from the sun towards Earth. Northern lights are possible as far south as Scotland and northwest Canada as these bursts of solar plasma and magnetic field interact with Earth's atmosphere.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 4.33 over the next 24 hours. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Thursday, March 20: First day of northern spring is good news for aurora chasers

With several coronal mass ejections — expulsions of plasma and magnetic field from the sun — heading toward Earth conditions remain favorable for good northern lights shows at high latitudes.

What's more, today is the first day of northern spring, the vernal equinox. And auroras love equinoxes! At this time of year "cracks" can form in Earth's magnetic field, so even a weak stream of solar wind can get through and spark a promising display, according to Spaceweather.com, this is known as The Russel-McPherron effect. It arises around the equinox when Earth is not tilted toward or away from the sun (as it is during the rest of the year). When there is no tilt, the solar wind's magnetic field is more attracted to Earth's magnetic field, resulting in a more substantial "funneling" of energy down into the atmosphere, resulting in stronger auroras.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 4 over the next 24 hours. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Aurora forecast for tonight and the weekend: Quiet for now but conditions could improve over the coming days

There is a chance of possible minor geomagnetic storms over the weekend due to the anticipated arrival of several coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and subsequent enhanced solar wind speeds which could spark good northern lights displays at high latitudes.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 3.67 over the weekend. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Earth is currently in a prime position for stunning auroras, thanks to our proximity to the vernal equinox, which occurred on March 20. Auroras tend to flourish around the equinoxes due to a phenomenon known as the Russell-McPherron effect. During this time of year, Earth's magnetic field can develop temporary "cracks," allowing even weak solar wind streams to penetrate and ignite dazzling light displays. This happens because, unlike other times of the year when Earth is tilted toward or away from the sun, the equinox brings a more neutral alignment. As a result, the solar wind's magnetic field interacts more efficiently with Earth's, channeling energy into the atmosphere and enhancing auroral activity.

We could be in for quite the treat this weekend, so keep your eyes on the sky!

Strong geomagnetic storm alert! Northern lights could be visible as far south as Illinois and Oregon tonight

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center has issued a strong (G3) geomagnetic storm watch for tonight, aurora chasers be alert!

An incoming coronal mass ejection that left the sun on March 21, could impact Earth early March 23 (UTC) and trigger a strong geomagnetic storm which may spark northern lights as far south as Illinois and Oregon.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center predicts that the Kp index will peak at 7 between 11 p.m. to 2 a.m. EDT (0300 and 0600 GMT) tonight. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Keep your eyes on the skies, those camera batteries charged and fingers crossed! We could be in for a splendid show...

Monday, March 24: Moderate geomagnetic activity continues despite weak CME impact

A coronal mass ejection (CME) arrived at Earth early this morning (0038 UTC), but its impact was weaker than expected and did not trigger the strong geomagnetic storm that had been forecast.

However, additional weak CME glancing blows may be on the way, along with a fast stream of solar wind expected to arrive by mid-week. As a result, geomagnetic activity remains elevated, keeping the chances of northern lights high for those in high-latitude regions.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 4.67 over the next 24 hours, reaching 5.67 tomorrow night. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Tuesday, March 25: Active geomagnetic conditions could spark impressive northern lights tonight

Good news aurora chasers! Anticipated moderate (G2) geomagnetic storm conditions tonight could spark northern lights as far south as New York and Idaho.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 5.67 over the next 24 hours. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

But what's driving this predicted uptick in activity? A co-rotating interaction region (CIR) is the culprit. CIRs are regions in the solar wind where fast-moving solar wind streams interact with slower wind ahead of them. CIRs contain shock waves similar to those embedded in coronal mass ejections (CMEs). The incoming CIR is powered by the colossal Earth-facing coronal hole in the sun's atmosphere.

Earth is currently in a prime position for stunning auroras, thanks to our proximity to the vernal equinox, which occurred on March 20. Auroras tend to flourish around the equinoxes due to a phenomenon known as the Russell-McPherron effect. During this time of year, Earth's magnetic field can develop temporary "cracks," allowing even weak solar wind streams to penetrate and ignite dazzling light displays. This happens because, unlike other times of the year when Earth is tilted toward or away from the sun, the equinox brings a more neutral alignment. As a result, the solar wind's magnetic field interacts more efficiently with Earth's, channeling energy into the atmosphere and enhancing auroral activity.

We could be in for a real treat tonight so keep those eyes on the skies!

If you're interested in tracking space weather and knowing when and where to spot auroras, download a space weather app that provides forecasts based on your location. One option I use is "My Aurora Forecast & Alerts," available for both iOS and Android. However, any similar app should work well. I also use the "Space Weather Live" app, which is available on iOS and Android, to get a deeper understanding of whether the current space weather conditions are favorable for aurora sightings.

Read more: Aurora alert! Moderate geomagnetic storm could spark northern lights as far south as New York and Idaho tonight (March 25)

Wednesday, March 26: Moderate geomagnetic activity continues, offering great northern lights viewing opportunities for high-latitude locations

Active geomagnetic conditions persist, bringing good news for those hoping to catch the northern lights tonight.

NOAA space weather forecasters predict that moderate G2-class geomagnetic storms are possible today as Earth's magnetic field continues to respond to the impact of the co-rotating interaction region (CIR) from March 25.

According to the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center, the Kp index is expected to peak at 5 over the next 24 hours. For the latest forecast and timing details, check out NOAA's 3-day outlook.

Thursday, March 27: Northern lights possible again tonight at high latitudes as geomagnetic activity remains high

"Moderate to strong geomagnetic storm conditions fluctuated throughout the night as Earth was (and still is) buffeted by a high-speed solar wind stream.

Northern lights were detected as far south as north Italy at 45°N!

Unfortunately for aurora chasers, the display could have been even more spectacular if the incoming solar wind’s magnetic polarity had been more favorable.

"Too bad the magnetic polarity is the wrong way for decent storming, or we'd be at G3-levels by now," space weather physicist Tamitha Skov wrote in a post on X.

A key ingredient of aurora activity is the Bz value of the Interplanetary Magnetic Field, which can be easily viewed on SpaceWeatherLive.com. You're ideally looking for a strong "south" Bz which means it will connect with Earth's magnetosphere which points northward. A strong southward Bz can wreak havoc with Earth's magnetic field and send particles raining down through the atmosphere along magnetic field lines. When these energized particles collide with atoms in Earth's atmosphere they release the light we see as auroras. If there is a strong southward Bz, your chances of seeing auroras increase significantly.

But we could still be in for another show tonight. According to the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center, the Kp index is expected to peak at 4 over the next 24 hours. For the latest forecast and timing details, check out NOAA's 3-day outlook.

Aurora forecast for tonight and the weekend

Fair northern lights conditions over the weekend despite waning geomagnetic conditions.

Solar winds remain strong due to a high-speed stream from a large coronal hole, though they are gradually declining. Minor geomagnetic storm intervals are possible today (March 28), with auroral activity decreasing over the weekend. A filament eruption on March 27 produced a coronal mass ejection, but it's unlikely to be Earth-directed, according to the U.K. Met Office. While a glancing blow from a previous eruption could arrive March 29–30, confidence is low. Expect the best aurora chances tonight, fading into quieter conditions by Sunday.

According to the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center, the Kp index is expected to peak at 4 over the weekend. For the latest forecast and timing details, check out NOAA's 3-day outlook.

Monday, March 31: Relatively low geomagnetic activity for now but some big players are entering the game...

Though geomagnetic activity looks relatively quiet for now, with the northern lights mostly confined to high latitudes, two sunspot regions could disrupt the peace.

Two sunspot regions, 4046 and 4048 are currently rotating into view and have been crackling with activity. 4046 was responsible for a colossal X-class solar flare and accompanying coronal mass ejection (CME) last week (March 28) and 4048 has been firing off a barrage of powerful M-class solar flares as it makes its presence known.

Both sunspot regions will be rotating into the 'Earth-strike zone' this week, when pointing at Earth, any CME released at that time will be more likely to impact our planet, potentially triggering geomagnetic storms and subsequent impressive auroras.

Space weather forecasters will be keeping a watchful eye on the two regions.

According to the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center, the Kp index is expected to peak at 3 over the next 24 hours. For the latest forecast and timing details, check out NOAA's 3-day outlook -- Daisy Dobrijevic

Tuesday, April 1: Geomagnetic activity is decreasing for now, with northern lights mostly limited to high latitudes

There is some potential for aurora activity over the next 24 to 48 hours but the forecast remains uncertain. A slow-moving coronal mass ejection (CME) that erupted from the sun on March 29 may give Earth a glancing blow on April 2 and spark geomagnetic disturbances, though chances are quite low.

The sun has been releasing a barrage of strong solar flares recently, but most CMEs released during these times are forecast to miss Earth, according to the U.K. Met Office. However, the two large sunspot regions crackling with activity will be turning to face Earth in the coming days, which means any CME released when they are in the "Earth-strike zone" could hit Earth directly, sparking geomagnetic storms and subsequent vivid northern lights. Space weather forecasters are watching them very closely!

According to the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center, the Kp index is expected to peak at 2.33 over the weekend. For the latest forecast and timing details, check out NOAA's 3-day outlook.

Wednesday, April 2: Northern lights primarily confined to high latitudes tonight but more activity could be on its way

Though current geomagnetic activity looks relatively quiet with northern lights primarily confined to high latitudes, an incoming co-rotating interaction region (CIR) is on its way and expected to hit Earth on April 4.

A CIR is a turbulent area in the solar wind where fast-moving streams collide with slower wind ahead of them. CIRs can generate shock waves similar to those found in coronal mass ejections (CMEs), enhancing space weather effects.

According to the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center, the Kp index is expected to peak at 2.67 over the next 24 hours, rising to 5 (G1 geomagnetic storm conditions) on April 4 when the CIR is expected to hit. For the latest forecast and timing details, check out NOAA's 3-day outlook.

Thursday, April 3: Auroras mainly confined to high latitudes but April 4 holds promise

Though the northern lights are primarily confined to high latitudes tonight, geomagnetic activity is starting to rise once again. As mentioned yesterday a co-rotating interaction region (CIR) is on its way and is still predicted to impact Earth overnight on April 4-5.

A CIR is a turbulent area in the solar wind where fast-moving streams collide with slower wind ahead of them. CIRs can generate shock waves similar to those found in coronal mass ejections (CMEs), enhancing space weather effects.

According to the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center, the Kp index is expected to peak at 3.67 over the next 24 hours and rise to 5 (G1 geomagnetic storm conditions) overnight April 4, when the CIR is expected to hit. For the latest forecast and timing details, check out NOAA's 3-day outlook.

Aurora forecast for tonight and the weekend: Promising conditions over the weekend!

Aurora chasers, keep your eyes on the skies over the weekend as we could be in for a nice northern lights show.

A co-rotating interaction region (CIR) is en route and is still predicted to impact Earth overnight on April 4-5. A CIR is a turbulent area in the solar wind where fast-moving streams collide with slower wind ahead of them. CIRs can generate shock waves similar to those found in coronal mass ejections (CMEs), enhancing space weather effects.

According to the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center, the Kp index is expected to peak at 5 over the next 48 hours. For the latest forecast and timing details, check out NOAA's 3-day outlook.

Northern Hemisphere aurora forecast courtesy of the Met Office

Monday, April 7: Fair chance of northern lights in the coming days

Aurora chasers, while things are relatively quiet for now, there's still a chance for northern lights in the coming days.

We’re seeing fast solar wind from a coronal hole keeping conditions mildly active, unsettled to active geomagnetic periods. Several brief G1 (Minor) storms were observed over the weekend, and more isolated G1 activity is possible on April 8 and again on April 10 according to the UK Met Office.

No Earth-directed CMEs have been spotted, and solar activity remains low overall, though there’s a chance of moderate flares. So, while tonight may be a bit of a waiting game, keep watch if you're in a high-latitude area.

According to the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center, the Kp index is expected to peak at 4 over the next 24 hours. For the latest forecast and timing details, check out NOAA's 3-day outlook.

Tuesday, April 8: Modest activity at the moment but things could be heating up

While solar activity remains mostly low, with northern lights confined to high latitudes, fast solar wind from several coronal holes is expected to stir things up in the coming days. Wind speeds have eased slightly, but are still elevated, and the geomagnetic field is responding with Quiet to Active conditions.

There's a chance of isolated G1 (Minor) geomagnetic storms, especially as Earth moves deeper into these high-speed streams according to the UK Met Office. The next few nights could bring some brief aurora opportunities, especially for high-latitude observers. Even if things don't spike dramatically, unsettled and active conditions can still bring out a glow for patient stargazers.

According to the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center, the Kp index is expected to peak at 3 over the next 24 hours. For the latest forecast and timing details, check out NOAA's 3-day outlook.

Wednesday, April 9: Fast moving solar wind sparks geomagnetic storm — northern lights likely at high latitudes

Earth is currently being buffeted by a fast stream of solar wind, sparking minor (G1) geomagnetic storms. Northern lights are likely at high latitudes, weather permitting.

Expect turbulent space weather in the coming days as Earth moves deeper into these high-speed streams, according to the U.K. Met Office. Keep your eyes on the skies and your aurora alerts switched on!

According to the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center, the Kp index is expected to peak at 3.67 over the next 24 hours. For the latest forecast and timing details, check out NOAA's 3-day outlook.

Thursday, April 10: Solar wind continues to spark minor geomagnetic storm conditions and northern lights at high latitudes

Earth continues to feel the effects of a fast stream of solar wind, sparking minor (G1) geomagnetic storms overnight. Northern lights are likely at high latitudes, weather permitting.

According to the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center, the Kp index is expected to peak at 3.67 over the next 24 hours. For the latest forecast and timing details, check out NOAA's 3-day outlook.

Northern lights forecast for tonight and the weekend: Effects of fast solar wind continue through the weekend

Good news aurora chasers! Elevated geomagnetic conditions will continue through the weekend as Earth continues to feel the effects of a fast stream of solar wind, sparking minor (G1) geomagnetic storms overnight. Northern lights are likely at high latitudes, weather permitting.

According to the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center, the Kp index is expected to peak at 4 over the next 24 hours. For the latest forecast and timing details, check out NOAA's 3-day outlook.

If you're interested in tracking space weather and knowing when and where to spot auroras, download a space weather app that provides forecasts based on your location. One option I use is "My Aurora Forecast & Alerts," available for both iOS and Android. However, any similar app should work well. I also use the "Space Weather Live" app, which is available on iOS and Android, to get a deeper understanding of whether the current space weather conditions are favorable for aurora sightings.

Monday, April 14: Heads up aurora chasers... something big might be coming!

While the northern lights forecast for tonight remains relatively tame, with auroras confined primarily to high latitudes. NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center issued a geomagnetic storm watch on April 16 as not one but two coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are expected to hit Earth's magnetic field in quick succession!

CMEs are plumes of plasma and magnetic field from the sun, when they strike Earth's magnetic field they can trigger geomagnetic storms which in turn can spark strong aurora displays deep into mid-latitudes.

According to Spaceweather.com, the forecast G2 geomagnetic storm conditions could see auroras spread across Canada and the northern-tier US States.

According to the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center, the Kp index is expected to peak at 2.67 over the next 24 hours. The predicted Kp rises to 6 on April 16. For the latest forecast and timing details, check out NOAA's 3-day outlook.

Keep your eyes on the skies and your aurora alerts switched on!

Tuesday, April 15: Good northern lights prospects tonight and they're only getting better

Heads up, aurora chasers! Earth's magnetic field is about to get a one-two punch from the sun — and the result could be an impressive show of northern lights stretching into mid-latitudes.

Read more: Rare double solar blast unleashes 2 CMEs towards Earth — auroras possible April 16

According to the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center, the Kp index is expected to peak at 5 over the next 24 hours. The predicted Kp rises to 6 on April 16. For the latest forecast and timing details, check out NOAA's 3-day outlook.

Keep your eyes on the skies and your aurora alerts switched on!

Auroras incoming! G3 level Geomagnetic storm watch issued

NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center has just increased the geomagnetic storm watch from G2 (moderate) to G3 (strong).

If G3 levels are reached on April 16, auroras could be visible as far south as Illinois and Oregon.

Keep your eyes on the skies and those aurora alerts switched on!

We have contact! CME impact detected hours earlier than expected

A CME has arrived! Arriving hours earlier than expected a CME struck Earth's magnetic field at 1 p.m. ET (1700 GMT) according to Spaceweather.com. At the time of writing it is currently too early to tell whether the impact is the first CME or maybe a combination of the two.

Currently, conditions are looking very promising for northern lights at high latitudes and even down into mid-latitudes. But space weather is fickle and conditions could change on a dime so keep your eyes on the skies when it becomes dark!

Read more: Aurora alert! Powerful geomagnetic storm could spark northern lights as far south as Illinois and Oregon tonight

Wednesday, April 16: Great chance of northern lights at high latitudes as active geomagnetic conditions persist

Geomagnetic storms are likely to continue today after Earth received at least one CME hit on April 15 at around 1 p.m. ET (1700 GMT). The impact sparked 12 hours of minor (G1) and moderate (G2) geomagnetic storms which gave rise to some impressive northern lights at high latitudes.

A strong (G3) geomagnetic storm watch remains in place for today as conditions could intensify again, particularly if another CME arrives.

According to the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center, the Kp index is expected to peak at 5.33 over the next 24 hours. For the latest forecast and timing details, check out NOAA's 3-day outlook.

G3 levels reached! Strong geomagnetic storm in progress

Earth is currently experiencing a strong G3 level geomagnetic storm. If conditions hold until the sun sets this could be very good news for aurora chasers, with northern lights possible deep into mid latitudes.

Thursday, April 17: Geomagnetic storm subsiding but still a fair chance of auroras at high latitudes

Wow! What a 24 hours it has been! Earth's magnetic field has been reverberating from the CME that struck on April 15. The impact sparked several geomagnetic storms from G1 to G3 and even a brief period of severe G4 levels, sparking northern lights deep into mid-latitudes.

Read more: Rare 'cannibal' solar eruption sparks severe geomagnetic storm, triggers stunning auroras (photos)

Though conditions are subsiding, there is still a good chance of northern lights at high latitudes tonight.

According to the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center, the Kp index is expected to peak at 4.33 over the next 24 hours. For the latest forecast and timing details, check out NOAA's 3-day outlook.

Northern lights for tonight and the weekend

Relatively quiet skies tonight but possible geomagnetic storm Monday

After several days of auroral excitement fueled by a CME earlier this week, things have calmed down — for now. Geomagnetic activity has dropped below storm levels, and Earth's magnetic field is enjoying a breather. Over the past 24 hours, the greatest observed Kp index was 4, which is below NOAA's threshold for a G1 geomagnetic storm.

But don't pack up your camera gear just yet.

Though skies are mostly quiet, there's still a chance for auroras at high latitudes tonight as we ride out the last whispers of CME effects. The solar wind is still flowing at slightly elevated speeds (around 420 km/s), and the interplanetary magnetic field has remained moderately strong. However, a northward-pointing magnetic field has kept activity relatively tame.

According to the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center, the Kp index is expected to hover below storm levels through April 20, peaking around 4. That's enough for northern lights near the Arctic Circle, but likely not enough to push auroras deep into mid-latitudes.

Looking ahead: A new player on the horizon

There's something brewing on the sun: a large coronal hole in the southeast. It's not Earth-facing just yet, but forecasters expect its high-speed solar wind to arrive by April 21. When it does, it could kick off another round of G1 (minor) geomanetic storm conditions — possibly even G2 (moderate) if everything lines up just right.

So while the aurora forecast is fairly quiet over the weekend, keep an eye on early next week. Monday night could bring another dance of lights to the skies — and we'll be here to keep you updated when it does.

Forecast at a glance:

• April 18–20 Kp Max: 4 (below storm level)
• Aurora potential: Moderate at high latitudes, low at mid-latitudes
• Next potential storm: April 21, due to high-speed solar wind from a large coronal hole

-- Daisy Dobrijevic

Monday, April 21: Moderate geomagnetic storm watch this week

There is a chance of moderate geomagnetic storm activity over the next three days thanks to high speed winds blowing from a hole in the sun's corona, the outermost part of its atmosphere.

These holes form when the sun's magnetic field opens, allowing streams of charged particles known as solar wind to flow towards Earth. When these particles reach earth on April 22 and 23, we could see the northern lights as far south as the northernmost parts of the United States. There is also a chance for minor to moderate radio blackouts on these days, according to NOAA.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 6 over the next 24 hours. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Tuesday, April 22: Geomagnetic storms likely as Earth is buffeted by fast solar winds

A stream of high-speed solar wind has arrived!

Earth is currently being buffeted by high-speed solar winds spewing from a colossal coronal hole on the sun.

The elevated solar wind conditions could spark geomagnetic storm conditions, with a chance of G1 (minor) to isolated G2 (moderate) geomagnetic storms. If conditions align, this could bring auroras to mid-latitude locations during peak activity!

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 4.67 over the next 24 hours. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Wednesday, April 23: Possible northern lights at high latitudes tonight

There's a glimmer of aurora potential in the next 24 hours, especially for skywatchers in high-latitude regions.

Fast solar winds from a coronal hole are currently sweeping past Earth, with the added possibility of a glancing blow from a possible coronal mass ejection (CME). While geomagnetic activity has been relatively calm, there’s still a chance of G1 (Minor) geomagnetic storms through today and into tomorrow.

In the Northern Hemisphere, those in northern Scotland and similar latitudes could catch occasional auroral displays—weather permitting—though activity is expected to trend downward. The Southern Hemisphere has a similar outlook, with a chance of auroras brushing the far south of New Zealand.

The sun has been moderately active, with several sunspot regions developing, so more surprises can't be ruled out. For now, keep an eye on the northern or southern horizon if you're in the right spot — and maybe have your camera ready, just in case!

Thursday, April 24: We have contact! CME impact detected, northern lights possible at high latitudes

There's a good chance of northern lights at high latitudes tonight as Earth has just been impacted by a coronal mass ejection (CME).

CMEs are plumes of plasma and magnetic field from the sun. When they strike Earth's magnetic field, they can trigger geomagnetic storms, which in turn spark strong aurora displays deep into mid-latitudes.

In addition to the CME impact, fast solar winds are currently sweeping past Earth, fuelled by a large coronal hole on the surface of the sun.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 4 over the next 24 hours. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Aurora forecast for tonight and the weekend: Quiet start but weekend glimmers possible

The aurora forecast kicks off quietly, but skywatchers at higher latitudes should stay alert this coming weekend. A minor geomagnetic storm (G1) is possible, offering a flicker of hope for northern lights across northern Scotland and similar geomagnetic latitudes.

This potential activity is linked to a resurgence in fast solar wind from a southern hemisphere coronal hole, brushing past Earth over the weekend. While not a guaranteed northern lights event, conditions could become favorable for brief displays, especially under clear, dark skies.

Solar activity remains relatively low, with no major flares or Earth-directed CMEs expected in the coming days. However, a handful of complex sunspot regions continue to evolve, keeping forecasters on alert for any surprises.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 4 over the weekend. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Monday, April 28: Fair chance of northern lights at high latitudes tonight

Quiet solar conditions persist, leaving northern lights primarily confined to high latitudes for 24 to 48 hours.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 3 over the next 24 hours. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Tuesday, April 29: Quiet conditions but something big is coming...

The sun has been crackling with M-class solar flares today but current geomagnetic conditions appear to be relatively calm. Northern lights will be mainly confined to higher latitudes.

But something might be coming to shake things up! A large sunspot region is beginning to emerge from the sun's northeastern limb. According to spaceweather.com, region 4079 appears to be the "second coming of sunspot 4055," which grew considerably during its two-week voyage around the far side of the sun.

Scientists will be keeping a watchful eye on sunspot region 4079 to see if it holds any promise of powerful solar flares or CMEs, which in turn can trigger geomagnetic storms and vivid aurora displays.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 2.33 over the next 24 hours. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Wednesday, April 30: Relatively quiet conditions for now, but things could heat up in coming days

Keep your eyes on the skies!

While solar winds remain fairly calm, a fast stream from a coronal hole could stir up minor geomagnetic storms between May 1–2. This means there's a chance for auroras, especially at higher latitudes.

Several active sunspot regions, including a large one (region 4079) rotating into view, are firing off moderate solar flares, adding some extra spark to space weather. No major coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are headed our way, but conditions may still get lively in the coming days.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 1.67 over the next 24 hours. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Thursday May 1: Unsettled conditions with a chance of X-flares

Elevated solar wind streams from an Earth-facing coronal hole have arrived, sparking minor G1 geomagnetic storms. Unsettled conditions are expected to continue through May 2, northern lights likely at high latitudes.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 3 over the next 24 hours. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

A large sunspot region continues to turn to face Earth, region 4079 now has a 10% chance of an X-flare according to Space Weather Live. Space weather forecasters are watching this region closely. If you have solar viewing accessories such as solar binoculars or even solar eclipse glasses, you may also see the sunspot for yourself! It's currently visible on the sun's northeastern limb (upper left portion) and will rotate to face us in the coming days. Remember, NEVER look at the sun without appropriate safety equipment.

Related: How to observe the sun safely (and what to look for)

Aurora forecast for tonight and the weekend: Northern lights possible tonight with more aurora chances Sunday into Monday

Heads up, aurora chasers! A fast-moving stream of solar wind from a coronal hole is currently buffeting Earth’s magnetic field. Minor G1-class geomagnetic storm levels were reached early this morning, 00:59 EDT (0459 GMT), Friday, May 2. There’s also a slight chance the storm could intensify to a moderate G2-level, boosting aurora visibility farther south than usual.

If the stronger activity materializes, northern-tier U.S. states like Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, and parts of the Great Lakes region could catch a glimpse of the northern lights over the weekend, especially where skies are clear and light pollution is low.

What to expect this weekend:

May 2 (Friday): Minor storm conditions (G1) are likely during the early morning hours UTC, with a chance of reaching G2. Watch the skies tonight!

May 3 (Saturday): A quieter spell is expected, with geomagnetic activity likely dropping to unsettled or quiet levels.

May 4–5 (Sunday–Monday): Activity may ramp up again late Sunday into Monday as Earth connects with another high-speed solar wind stream from a second coronal hole. This could trigger isolated G1-class storm intervals and another shot at aurora sightings.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 3.67 over the weekend. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Tuesday, May 6: Minor geomagnetic storms possible tonight, northern lights possible at high latitudes

Good news aurora chasers, we may be in for more minor (G1) geomagnetic storms tonight. Northern lights are possible at high latitudes.

Space weather forecasters are keeping an eye on Earth's magnetic field as a fast solar wind stream continues to blow from a coronal hole. This has sparked Unsettled to Active geomagnetic conditions over the past 24 hours, with a chance of G1 (Minor) geomagnetic storms through tonight and into May 7, according to the U.K. Met Office.

While solar activity remains low overall, four sunspot regions are visible on the sun, including one with increasing magnetic complexity — a potential source of future flares. A recent filament eruption could deliver a glancing blow of plasma late on May 7, possibly enhancing auroral activity.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 4 over the next 24 hours. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

For now, high-latitude skywatchers have the best chance of catching the northern lights tonight, especially under clear, dark skies.

Wednesday, May 7: Possible glancing blow from CME could spark auroras tonight

If you're hoping to catch a glimpse of the northern lights tonight, there's a chance, especially if you're located at high latitudes.

A combination of two events could make aurora sightings possible tonight and into early Thursday (May 8). A high-speed stream of solar wind is currently buffeting Earth's magnetic field. Though it is beginning to ease, it is still strong enough to contribute to geomagnetic activity. Earth could also receive a glancing blow from a coronal mass ejection (CME) — a vast plume of plasma and magnetic field from the sun — late tonight or early Thursday. If it does hit, it could enhance aurora visibility, though space weather forecasters caution that this impact is of low confidence.

Together, these space weather events could produce Minor Geomagnetic Storm (G1) conditions, meaning the aurora could become visible in northern parts of Canada, Alaska, Scandinavia, and other high-latitude regions.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 3 over the next 24 hours. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Thursday, May 8: Northern lights possible tonight but conditions look better for tomorrow

Aurora watchers at high latitudes may see the northern lights tonight, though conditions are looking quieter than earlier this week. Solar wind activity from a coronal hole high-speed stream is gradually declining, and geomagnetic activity is expected to remain mostly quiet to unsettled through tonight, with only a slight chance of G1 (Minor) storm conditions.

The best chances for aurora sightings tonight are in high-latitude regions like northern Canada, Alaska, Scandinavia, and potentially northern Scotland or Iceland — especially under clear, dark skies.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 3.67 over the next 24 hours. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Looking ahead, the outlook improves for Friday, May 9. A new high-speed stream from a southern coronal hole is expected to arrive, possibly boosting geomagnetic activity. Minor (G1) geomagnetic storm conditions are likely tomorrow, according to NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center.

There's also a low chance of a glancing CME impact. Together, these could enhance aurora visibility tomorrow night, particularly at high latitudes.

Northern lights forecast for tonight and the weekend: Active conditions will taper off through the weekend

If you're hoping to see the northern lights this weekend, tonight (May 9) might be your best chance as minor (G1) geomagnetic storms are possible thanks to a possible glancing blow from a recent coronal mass ejection (CME) and enhanced solar wind from a coronal hole. The best chances will be at high latitudes under clear, dark skies.

Through the weekend (May 10–11), activity is expected to taper slightly, with conditions ranging from quiet to unsettled (Kp 1–3). Brief active periods (Kp 4) can't be ruled out as the solar wind remains elevated.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 4.67 over the weekend. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Solar activity remains low overall, but there's a continuing chance of moderate-class flares from a large sunspot group, which may spark short radio blackouts but are unlikely to impact auroras.

Keep your eyes on the skies and check real-time aurora trackers tonight—aurora chasers in northern regions could be in for a treat!

Forecast for the weekend courtesy of space weather physicist Tamitha Skov

Northern Hemisphere aurora forecast courtesy of the Met Office

Monday, May 12: Mildly active conditions could spark northern lights tonight

There's a fair chance of northern lights tonight (May 12) and into tomorrow (May 13) as space weather conditions remain mildly active.

Over the past 24 hours, moderately strong solar wind and fluctuating magnetic fields sparked a minor geomagnetic storm (G1), which peaked late in the evening.

Looking ahead, more unsettled space weather is expected to continue through May 13 and into May 14, with another possible G1 storm on the horizon. That means skies could stay aurora-friendly, especially for northern-tier locations under clear, dark skies.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 3.67 over the weekend. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

While no major solar eruptions are currently aimed at Earth, the solar wind remains enhanced due to lingering coronal hole activity, making this a good time to keep an eye out if you're in the right location. Stay tuned for updates!

Tuesday, May 13: Mostly quiet between brief enhancements

If you're hoping to catch the northern lights tonight, there’s a small chance, especially early in the evening and again later this week.

Minor geomagnetic activity may boost auroras, potentially pushing them down to northern Scotland and similar latitudes where skies are clear and dark. However, don’t expect a major show — activity is mostly quiet between these brief enhancements.

Solar wind is slowly picking up again as a new high-speed stream arrives, which could mean better chances later in the week.

Last night, around midnight GMT, a colossal filament stretching almost a million kilometers across the sun's northern hemisphere erupted. It's likely that the debris from the eruption will miss Earth but forecasters are still analyzing the trajectory. Confirmation awaits fresh data from SOHO coronagraphs, according to Spaceweather.com.

Skies clear? It’s worth a look — but manage expectations. The best may be yet to come.

Wednesday, May 14: Quiet conditions for tonight but activity may pick up later in the week

Though the sun has been erupting with several strong solar flares and filament eruptions in recent days, there are no signs of any incoming coronal mass ejections (CMEs), which can shake up geomagnetic conditions on Earth.

The northern lights will be confined to high latitudes tonight. There is a possibility of minor enhancement through May 15 and 16 when a faster solar wind stream from a coronal hole is expected to arrive, according to the U.K. Met Office.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 2.67 over the weekend. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Thursday, May 15: High solar activity, but not Earth-facing

The sun has been crackling with activity this week, releasing several strong solar flares and filament eruptions, but no incoming coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are expected to reach Earth and cause geomagnetic storms.

That means the northern lights will likely only be seen at high latitudes close to the poles tonight. However, we could see a slight chance of increased geomagnetic activity on May 15 and 16 when a stream of solar wind stream arrives, according to the U.K. Met Office. This could give rise to a slight change of minor (G1) geomagnetic storms, possibly causing auroras as far south as northern Scotland and similar latitudes, the Met Office writes.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 3.67 over the weekend. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Northern lights forecast for tonight and the weekend: Slight chance of minor activity

Minor geomagnetic storms are likely on Sunday (May 18), but aurora activity looks to be fairly normal to quiet this weekend.

A high-speed stream of solar wind from a coronal hole, a gap where the sun's magnetic field opens up and allows charged particles to flow freely into space, could reach Earth on May 18 and lead to G1 (Minor) geomagnetic storm conditions, according to NOAA.

However, active sunspot region 4087 could produce strong solar flares over the next week as it continues to rotate towards us, so could see increased northern lights activity.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 4.67 over the weekend. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Monday, May 19: Some aurora activity possible tonight but solar wind speeds begin to fade

Heads up, aurora chasers! There’s still a chance for northern lights tonight (May 19) as Earth remains under the influence of a high-speed solar wind stream from a coronal hole. Minor (G1) geomagnetic storm conditions are possible at high latitudes, especially in the early hours.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 3.67 over the weekend. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

However, this storm has likely peaked. As the solar wind stream weakens, aurora chances will gradually decline through May 20–21. No Earth-directed coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are expected, and solar activity remains low overall.

Look up tonight if you’re at high latitudes — especially in clear, dark skies — but expect quieter space weather later in the week. Stay tuned for updates if anything changes!

Tuesday, May 20: Glancing CME blow could boost midweek aurora chances

A complex week of space weather could give skywatchers a slight edge in the hunt for northern lights.

A magnetic filament erupted from the sun's northern hemisphere late on May 18, hurling a coronal mass ejection (CME) into space. NOAA forecasters predict this CME may deliver a glancing blow to Earth’s magnetic field around May 23, potentially sparking minor geomagnetic activity.

In the meantime, Earth remains under the influence of a waning high-speed solar wind stream from a coronal hole in the sun's southern hemisphere. Solar wind speeds have dropped from over 600 km/s to around 450–500 km/s, keeping geomagnetic conditions mostly quiet to unsettled. Still, brief active periods remain possible through May 22.

The chances for northern lights remain modest in both hemispheres. Though no major storms are expected, the quiet-to-active range could still deliver subtle auroras, especially if the glancing CME impact arrives as predicted.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 3.67 over the next 24 hours. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Wednesday, May 21: Fast solar winds continue, minor geomagnetic storm possibe May 23

Today’s space weather remains relatively calm, though the sun continues to send fast solar wind our way, which is good news for those wishing to see the northern lights.

Solar wind speeds have climbed to over 600 km/s, thanks to a sprawling coronal hole in the southern hemisphere.

The real action may arrive on May 23, when a weak coronal mass ejection (CME)could deliver a glancing blow to Earth’s magnetic field. Combined with lingering high-speed winds, this could spark G1-class (Minor) geomagnetic storms, particularly at high latitudes.

Aurora visibility will be limited, especially in the Northern Hemisphere, where nights are getting shorter, but southern observers in areas like southern New Zealand or Antarctica could catch a glimpse if skies stay clear.

Thursday, May 22: Minor geomagnetic storm possible May 23

If you're hoping to catch a glimpse of the northern lights, keep your eyes on the skies over the next couple of nights — especially if you're at higher latitudes.

A glancing blow from a coronal mass ejection (CME) might reach Earth’s magnetic field on May 23, potentially triggering a G1-class (minor) geomagnetic storm, according to NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center. But this is far from a certain forecast as the CME might miss us entirely.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 2.67 over the next 24 hours. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Meanwhile, Earth is still feeling the effects of fast solar wind streaming from a coronal hole, keeping solar wind speeds elevated (currently around 550 km/s). These enhanced conditions could offer brief and subtle boosts to auroral activity, especially tonight (May 22) and into Friday.

If the CME does arrive as forecast on Friday, we could see a short-lived increase in geomagnetic activity, possibly lifting auroras into slightly more southerly latitudes than usual — though not dramatically so. Active conditions (Kp 4) are the most likely outcome, with a small chance of G1 storming (Kp 5) if the timing and orientation of the solar wind are just right.

Aurora forecast for tonight and the weekend: A relatively quiet but watchful weekend ahead

The northern lights forecast for the weekend remains on the quieter side, but skywatchers at higher latitudes may still have reason to look up.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 3.67 over the weekend. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Earth's magnetic field still feels the lingering effects of a high-speed solar wind stream from a coronal hole, with minor enhancements expected to taper off by May 25.

The combination of waning high speed solar wind influence and a possible glancing blow of a CME from a May 17 filament eruption could produce brief auroral enhancements, especially overnight on Friday (May 23).

While this weekend may not deliver a major aurora show, those in Alaska, Canada, and parts of Scandinavia should keep an eye on the skies, especially Friday night, for a potential northern lights display.

Tuesday, May 27: Fair chance of auroras at high latitudes tonight

Solar activity is heating up, which is great news for those chasing the northern lights!

Over the past 24 hours, two moderate (M-class) solar flares erupted from the sun, with one powerful blast launching a coronal mass ejection (CME). Though it's not headed our way, the sun's surface remains active, and more M-class flares are likely through May 29, with a slight chance for even stronger X-class flares.

Meanwhile, fast solar winds from a series of coronal holes are set to buffet Earth’s magnetic field starting late May 27. This could bring unsettled to storm-level (G1/minor) geomagnetic activity on May 28–29, especially as wind speeds rise.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 3.67 over the next 24 hours. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

There are also a few interesting sunspot regions beginning to rotate into view, which could spark active conditions in the coming days.

Aurora watchers, stay tuned! While activity is limited for now, viewing conditions may improve in high latitudes later this week.

Forecast for the week ahead courtesy of space weather physicist Tamitha Skov

Wednesday, May 28: Multiple coronal holes could bring promising aurora conditions over coming days

Multiple coronal holes are now facing Earth, including a large transequatorial coronal hole. These coronal holes are gaps in the sun's magnetic field that allow charged particles to escape into space as high-speed solar wind streams.

Fast streams from the coronal holes could stir up minor geomagnetic storms over the coming days. This means there's a chance for auroras, especially at higher latitudes.

We're already feeling the effects of some of these fast-moving streams. NOAA forecasters have issued a minor (G1) geomagnetic storm watch for today.

Additional solar wind streams — including one from the large transequatorial coronal hole — are expected to impact Earth in the next 3–4 days.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 4 over the next 24 hours. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Thursday, May 29: Surprise strong geomagnetic storm triggers auroras as far south as Italy

A forecasted minor (G1) geomagnetic storm briefly intensified into a strong (G3) geomagnetic storm overnight, as a fast solar wind stream triggered stronger-than-expected geomagnetic activity and striking northern lights.

G3 storm conditions were observed at 10:16 p.m. EDT on May 28 (0216 GMT on May 29). Auroras were reported as far south as Italy (45.9°N).

The culprit? A co-rotating interaction region (CIR) that struck our planet overnight.

These regions form when fast-moving solar wind catches up with slower wind, creating turbulent boundaries. CIRs can contain coronal mass ejection-like shock waves, making them surprisingly effective at triggering geomagnetic storms and stunning auroras.

Additional solar wind streams — including one from the large transequatorial coronal hole — are expected to impact Earth in the next 2-3 days.

The influence of strong solar wind is expected to continue over the coming days, so keep your eyes on the skies and your aurora alerts switched on!

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 4.33 over the next 24 hours. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Aurora forecast for tonight and the weekend: Enhanced solar wind may bring northern lights to mid-latitudes this weekend

A fast solar wind stream from a large coronal hole on the sun is stirring up Earth’s magnetic field, increasing the chances for northern lights sightings through tonight and into the weekend.

While geomagnetic activity has already hit G2 (moderate storm) levels, forecasts suggest G1 (minor storm) conditions are likely to continue through Saturday, with a few stronger intervals possible.

For skywatchers in the Northern Hemisphere, that means a chance of auroras over northern Scotland and similar geomagnetic latitudes. If the magnetic field orientation continues to cooperate, brief displays could push farther south across Scotland during clear, dark windows. However, limited nighttime darkness at this time of year may reduce viewing opportunities, especially at higher latitudes. In the Southern Hemisphere, the auroral oval is expected to stay near Antarctica, but a faint glow could be visible from the South Island of New Zealand late Friday night, if skies are clear and conditions hold.

Solar winds remain strong, hovering between 600–800 km/s, and are likely to stay elevated into Sunday.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 4.67 over the weekend. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Keep an eye on the sky — this weekend could deliver.

Saturday May 31: Head's up aurora chasers CME incoming!

Get those cameras charged and those aurora notifications switched on, we could be in for a real treat tonight.

In the early hours of May 31, the sun released a giant coronal mass ejection (CME) — a plume of plasma and magnetic field — and Earth is in the firing line.

Space weather forecasters are anticipating that the incoming CME will hit tonight and could trigger strong (G3) to severe (G4) geomagnetic storm conditions.

Read more: Aurora alert: Severe geomagnetic storm could spark northern lights as far south as Alabama and northern California tonight

Sunday, June 1: Solar storm has sparked severe G4 geomagnetic storm conditions!

As predicted, a coronal mass ejection struck Earth and has sparked severe (G4) geomagnetic storm conditions during the night! Auroras are being reported deep into mid-latitudes, including northern California and New Mexico!

Call for aurora photos

If you've captured a photo of the impressive northern lights or southern lights display, please send it to spacephotos@space.com along with any comments on how it felt to see the show, along with where and when the photograph was taken. You'll then be sent our image use agreement, which you'll need to agree to before we consider using your image.

Here's hoping the promising conditions hold for tonight!

Impressive live views from Tasmania as geomagnetic storm conditions continue

While dawn may be breaking for those of us in the Western Hemisphere, impressive aurora shows are continuing down under! The livestream below from Tasmania shows a stunning red show currently underway.

Sunday, June 1: Ongoing geomagnetic storm conditions could trigger yet more auroras tonight

Great news, aurora chasers! The northern lights may once again be visible deep into mid latitudes tonight as geomagnetic storm conditions continue to wreak havoc with Earth's magnetic field.

Read more: Aurora alert: Ongoing powerful geomagnetic storm could spark more northern lights across the US tonight

Monday, June 2: Good chance of auroras at high latitudes again tonight

What a weekend of geomagnetic activity! But alas, all good things must come to an end.

We're now seeing the final effects of the coronal mass ejection that hit in the early hours of June 1.

High-latitude skywatchers still have a chance to catch the northern lights tonight. Space weather forecasters at the U.K. Met Office predict unsettled to active conditions overnight tonight with a chance of minor (G1) geomagnetic storm intervals.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 5 over the next 24 hours. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Read more: Severe G4 geomagnetic storm sparks northern lights across US and beyond (photos)

Monday, June 2: Aurora chances for tonight are improving due to ongoing geomagnetic storm

Good news aurora chasers! We might be in for another treat tonight as geomagnetic activity continues to wreak havoc on Earth's magnetic field.

The direction of the interplanetary magnetic field, especially its north-south orientation (known as Bz), plays a key role in aurora activity.

The Bz has been oriented south for quite some time, fingers crossed it holds for tonight!

When Bz points south, it links up with Earth's magnetic field, which points north, just like how opposite poles of magnets snap together. This connection can disturb Earth’s magnetic field, letting charged particles stream into our atmosphere. As these particles travel along magnetic field lines and collide with oxygen and nitrogen in the air, they create auroras.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 6.67 over the next 24 hours. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

We will have to wait and see! Keep those fingers crossed, aurora alerts switched on and your eyes firmly fixed on the skies!

Tuesday, June 3: Geomagnetic activity winding down, but there’s still hope!

Wow, what a run it's been!

Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) kept geomagnetic storms going strong all weekend through today, lighting up skies across high latitudes with some spectacular aurora displays.

As of today, things are finally calming down. The strongest activity (Kp 7, G3) is expected to taper off through June 3. We may still see minor to moderate storm levels (Kp 4–5, G1–G2), particularly early today and again late on June 5.

There's still a chance for auroras at high latitudes tonight, thanks to a stream of fast solar wind from a coronal hole. Skywatchers in far northern locations — like Alaska, northern Canada, or Scandinavia — should keep an eye on the skies just in case.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 4.67 over the next 24 hours. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Wednesday, June 4: Auroras still possible as solar wind takes the reins

After a burst of geomagnetic activity and stunning northern lights earlier this week, Earth's magnetic field is starting to settle — but not completely.

As we move into tonight and tomorrow (June 4–5), the show isn't entirely over. A shift is underway from that fading CME to a stream of fast solar wind from a coronal hole — a darker region on the sun where charged particles escape more easily into space. This change could spark minor geomagnetic storms (G1 level), fueling auroras, especially at high latitudes.

Activity will likely be more subdued than recent nights, but there’s still a chance of faint auroras if skies are dark and clear. As always, the best opportunity to catch them is around local midnight — and far from city lights.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 5 over the next 24 hours. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Thursday, June 5: Northern lights mainly confined to high latitudes tonight

As geomagnetic activity returns to background levels, the northern lights will mainly be confined to high latitudes.

Activity may pick up again around June 7 when Earth could receive a glancing blow from a relatively slow coronal mass ejection (CME) — a vast plume of plasma and magnetic field from the sun.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) forecasts that the CME may hit by mid to late June 7 (UTC), while the UK Met Office places the arrival time slightly earlier, on Friday night (UTC).

If the CME strikes Earth, we could see an increase in solar wind speed and the potential for minor (G1) level geomagnetic storms, which may push the northern lights as far south as northern Michigan and Maine.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 4 over the next 24 hours. For the latest breakdown, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Aurora forecast for tonight and the weekend: Incoming weak solar storm could spark minor geomagnetic storm this weekend

Good news aurora chasers! A coronal mass ejection (CME) from a solar filament eruption on June 3 is on its way to Earth and could give aurora chasers a treat this weekend.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) says Earth could receive a glancing blow from the CME by mid to late June 7 (UTC), while the UK Met Office places the arrival time slightly earlier, on Friday night (UTC).

If the CME arrives, it's expected to stir up geomagnetic activity. Both NOAA SPWPC and the U.K. Met Office predict minor (G1) geomagnetic storm conditions, but there's potential for isolated moderate (G2) storms if the CME combines with the ongoing high-speed solar wind from an Earth-facing coronal hole.

Read more: Aurora alert: Incoming solar storm could spark auroras as far south as New York and Idaho this weekend

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 4.67 over the weekend. For the latest breakdown, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Monday, June 9: Fair chance of northern lights at high latitudes

Due to waning geomagnetic activity, the northern lights will mainly be confined to high latitudes tonight.

Earth is still feeling some of the lingering effects from the coronal mass ejection (CME) arrival on June 3, but activity is now starting to taper off.

It's possible that Earth could receive a glancing blow early on June 12 from a CME that left the sun in the early hours of June 8.

According to the U.K. Met Office, the greatest chance of a minor (G1) geomagnetic storm is on June 12.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 3.67 over the next 24 hours. For the latest breakdown, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Tuesday, June 10: Minor geomagnetic storms could stir up auroras over coming days

Skywatchers, keep your eyes on the north.

A couple of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are heading Earth's way, and combined with a persistent stream of fast solar wind, we could see minor geomagnetic storm conditions (G1) today, according to the U.K. Met Office.

Confidence is lower than usual, thanks to the complex timing and interaction of these incoming features. But if conditions are right, the northern lights could make an appearance across high-latitude skies tonight — especially over parts of Canada, Alaska, Scandinavia, and northern Russia.

This week, however, is not ideal for aurora hunting as the full moon combined with summer twilight makes for challenging aurora viewing conditions.

Solar wind speeds remain elevated (450–500 km/s), and Earth's magnetic field is feeling the squeeze, with occasional unsettled to active periods. Another faint CME is on the radar for June 12, which could bring another chance for auroras later this week.

NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 3 over the next 24 hours. For the latest breakdown, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Wednesday, June 11: Northern lights possible at high latitudes but quiet skies for most

Mild solar wind from a coronal hole is still brushing past Earth, keeping geomagnetic conditions mostly unsettled to active. However, no strong storms are expected, and auroras will likely stay confined to high geomagnetic latitudes — think far northern Canada, Alaska, or northern Scandinavia.

Unfortunately for northern watchers, the bright summer skies near the solstice will make viewing difficult, even where activity occurs. In the Southern Hemisphere, regions like Tasmania and southern New Zealand have better dark-sky chances, but activity is still expected to be low.

A glancing coronal mass ejection may arrive later this week, and a second coronal hole could boost activity again by June 14, offering better viewing potential. We will just have to wait and see.

NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 4 over the next 24 hours. For the latest breakdown, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Thursday, June 12: Auroras possible at high latitudes tonight, conditions improving for June 14

There is a slight chance of minor (G1) geomagnetic storm conditions tonight due to lingering effects from a coronal hole high-speed stream, according to the U.K. Met Office. The northern lights may be visible at high latitudes and could dip as far south as northern Scotland and similar regions, though short summer nights may limit visibility.

Conditions are expected to settle slightly by June 13, but activity is forecast to intensify again by June 14, when a moderate (G2) geomagnetic storm is expected as a large coronal hole rotates to face Earth. Coronal holes are regions where the sun’s magnetic field opens up, allowing solar wind to escape more easily and stream through space at high speeds. The predicted increase in geomagnetic activity on June 14 is driven by a co-rotating interaction region (CIR) — a turbulent zone in the solar wind where fast-moving streams catch up and collide with slower ones ahead of them.

NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 3.67 over the next 24 hours. For the latest breakdown, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Aurora forecast for tonight and the weekend: Chance of geomagnetic storms due to incoming turbulent space weather

Heads up, aurora chasers! A solar wind stream from a coronal hole, possibly combined with a glancing blow from a June 8 coronal mass ejection (CME), is set to stir up Earth’s magnetic field over the next few days.

Read more: Northern lights may be visible in these 18 US states tonight and over the weekend

NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) forecasts G1 (minor) to G2 (moderate) geomagnetic storm conditions early Friday, June 13, with activity possibly peaking again Saturday night. The geomagnetic Kp index could reach as high as 5.67 during the Friday overnight hours (03–06 UTC and 21–00 UTC), meaning auroras may become visible as far south as the northern U.S., Scotland, southern Canada, and similar latitudes — weather and darkness permitting.

By Saturday, activity is expected to taper slightly but could still reach G1 levels (Kp 4.67–5.67) in short bursts due to continued influence from a high-speed solar wind stream. Sunday looks quieter, though unsettled conditions may linger.

The U.K. Met Office notes that short nights in the northern hemisphere will limit visibility, so your best bet is to seek out dark skies away from city lights and check the skies in the early hours before dawn.

Auroras will be most likely between midnight and 3 a.m. local time — keep an eye on real-time data and alerts to track conditions in your area.

Monday, June 16: Quiet to active intervals confined northern lights to high latitudes... for now

Geomagnetic activity is forecast to be mostly quiet to unsettled over the next day or two, according to the U.K. Met . There is a chance of minor (G1) geomagnetic storm conditions later today as a fast solar wind stream continues to buffet Earth. Northern lights will mainly be confined to high latitudes tonight, with the long daylight hours making aurora spotting increasingly difficult.

Geomagnetic conditions could improve around June 18 due to a potential glancing blow from a coronal mass ejection (CME) released on June 15 during a powerful M8.4 class solar flare. Space weather forecasters are busy analyzing the models to gain a better idea of when the CME will hit and by how much. CME impacts can trigger powerful geomagnetic storms, which in turn can spark auroras beyond their usual high-latitude range.

NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 4.67 over the next 24 hours. For the latest breakdown, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Tuesday, June 17: Minor auroras possible this week, but don't expect a big show

The sun is still crackling with activity, but don't expect a dramatic northern lights show this week.

Minor geomagnetic activity is possible, especially Wednesday night into Thursday (June 18–19), thanks to fast solar wind streaming from a coronal hole and a possible glancing blow from an incoming coronal mass ejection (CME). This could spark faint auroras in far northern areas like northern Scotland and southern New Zealand.

In the Northern Hemisphere, long summer days mean short nights, which will make aurora spotting even harder, even if activity picks up. In the Southern Hemisphere, where darkness lasts longer, southern New Zealand may have a better chance of catching a glimpse.

NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 3.33 over the next 24 hours. For the latest breakdown, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Although the sun recently unleashed moderate solar flares and a few CMEs, most of the solar material is missing Earth or delivering only a glancing blow. So while the sun remains active, space weather forecasters expect only low-level geomagnetic effects for now...

Wednesday, June 18: Elevated geomagnetic storm conditions possible over coming days

A powerful X1.4-class solar flare erupted from sunspot AR4114 late on June 17, marking another surge in solar activity. Although coronal mass ejection (CME) accompanied the flare, ongoing fast solar wind from a southern coronal hole is keeping geomagnetic conditions elevated.

The UK Met Office and NOAA forecast mostly quiet to unsettled space weather for now, but a glancing blow from an earlier CME could spark brief auroral activity late today (June 18). A stronger chance for northern lights comes on June 20, when another weak CME may arrive, with a G1 (Minor) geomagnetic storm watch in effect.

While high-latitude aurora watchers may catch a glimpse, the displays are expected to be modest unless the solar wind unexpectedly strengthens. Still, with large and complex sunspot regions facing Earth, the potential for flare-driven surprises remains high.

Eyes on the skies — aurora season isn't over yet (but it is becoming increasingly difficult to spot the northern lights due to the long daylight hours).

Thursday, June 19: Quiet to unsettled geomagnetic activity confined northern lights primarily to high latitudes

The northern lights are expected to stay mostly at background levels, though brief enhancements are possible due to ongoing fast solar winds. A glancing blow from a coronal mass ejection (CME) could boost aurora activity late on June 20 or early June 21 (UTC). If that occurs, northern U.S. states may get a chance at seeing the aurora, but twilight conditions at this time of year limit visibility.

Geomagnetic conditions may reach G1 (Minor Storm) levels on June 20, with a maximum predicted Kp index of 5. While this could stir up auroras at high latitudes, chances remain modest for mid-latitude displays. Keep an eye on local skies and aurora alerts, especially overnight on June 20.

Overall, expect quiet-to-unsettled space weather with a slight chance for a photogenic surprise under clear, dark skies in the far north.

NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 5 over the next 24 hours. For the latest breakdown, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Aurora forecast for tonight and the weekend: Waning geomagnetic activity means aurora chances are relatively lower this weekend

Space weather is looking fairly quiet overall this weekend. There is a slight chance for northern lights at high latitudes, but the long daylight hours will make aurora hunting difficult.

A large coronal hole continues to send a stream of high-speed solar wind toward Earth, which is keeping geomagnetic conditions slightly elevated. But in general, expect quiet to unsettled conditions over the weekend.

NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 3.67 over the weekend. For the latest breakdown, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Monday, June 23: Quiet conditions for now but coronal hole could increase aurora chances later in the week

Aurora activity remains fairly low for now, but there's a change on the horizon.

A large coronal hole on the sun is turning toward Earth and is expected to send a high-speed stream of solar wind our way later this week, according to spaceweather.com. This could bring G1-class (minor) geomagnetic storms starting late June 25 and into June 26, boosting northern lights chances at high latitudes.

For tonight (June 23), conditions remain quiet to unsettled, with only slight enhancements possible at high geomagnetic latitudes. That means auroras are unlikely unless you're far north or south — and even then, the short summer nights in the north may limit visibility.

NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 3.67 over the next 24 hours. For the latest breakdown, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Tuesday, June 24: Aurora chances are increasing as geomagnetic activity starts to pick up

Good news aurora chasers! There may be an increased chance of catching the northern lights this week as a large coronal hole rotates into a geoeffective position, meaning fast solar wind escaping from the hole is aimed directly at Earth.

The fast solar wind is expected to reach Earth late on June 25. This could trigger G1–G2-class (Minor to Moderate) geomagnetic storms through midweek, with the best chances for aurora sightings in polar to high-latitude regions, especially in the Southern Hemisphere, where winter darkness offers prime viewing conditions.

No Earth-directed coronal mass ejections (CMEs) have been spotted recently, but a few magnetically complex sunspot regions are active, keeping a small chance of radio blackouts and solar radiation storms in the forecast.

So while tonight may be calm, keep your eyes on the skies later this week — the auroras may be ready to dance!

Wednesday, June 25: Good chance of northern lights tonight due to high speed solar wind

Aurora enthusiasts, get ready — tonight (June 25) could bring a dazzling display! A high-speed stream of solar wind flowing from a coronal hole on the sun is expected to stir up G1 to G2 (Minor to Moderate) geomagnetic storms, which may trigger northern lights over 14 U.S. states.

Read more: Northern lights may be visible in these 14 US States tonight

NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 5.67 over the next 24 hours. For the latest breakdown, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Northern Hemisphere aurora forecast courtesy of the Met Office

Thursday, June 26: Fast solar winds could spark more northern lights tonight

Heads up, aurora chasers — the northern lights could make an appearance tonight, especially at high latitudes, thanks to fast solar wind flowing from a coronal hole on the sun.

Solar wind speeds have ramped up to over 600 km/s and Earth’s magnetic field has responded with active conditions and a brief G1 (Minor) geomagnetic storm overnight. While the effects are expected to linger through Thursday (June 26), visibility will likely be limited to the far north — for example, northern Scandinavia, parts of Alaska, and northern Canada. Unfortunately, lingering twilight near the summer solstice continues to limit viewing potential across much of the Northern Hemisphere.

In the Southern Hemisphere, where long winter nights provide better contrast, the aurora may be visible from the far south of New Zealand or Tasmania.

Geomagnetic activity is expected to ease Friday into the weekend, though another brief enhancement is possible from a potential faint CME arriving June 27, according to the U.K. Met Office. So while conditions aren’t ideal everywhere tonight, it's still worth keeping an eye on the skies.

NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 5 over the next 24 hours. For the latest breakdown, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Aurora forecast for tonight and the weekend: Waning conditions predicted as activity reduces to background levels

Fast solar wind from a coronal hole is currently sweeping past Earth, bringing a continued chance of possible G1 (Minor) geomagnetic storm conditions through Friday night (June 27). That means auroras could make a brief appearance at high latitudes, especially in the Southern Hemisphere, including Antarctica and potentially the southernmost parts of New Zealand.

In the Northern Hemisphere, skies remain bright at extreme latitudes due to the summer solstice, limiting aurora visibility even if geomagnetic activity picks up. Some auroral enhancement is still possible Friday night, but it's likely to be faint and confined to far northern regions under dark skies.

Looking ahead, space weather is expected to gradually calm over the weekend, with aurora chances decreasing into Saturday and Sunday. If you're in the right place tonight and have clear, dark skies, it's worth keeping an eye on the horizon — the auroras might still make a fleeting appearance.

NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 3.67 over the weekend. For the latest breakdown, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Northern Hemisphere aurora forecast courtesy of the Met Office

Monday, June 30: Quiet conditions for now but auroras could pick up midweek

Don't expect a great deal of northern lights action tonight. Space weather conditions remain calm, and no significant enhancements to the auroral oval are forecast through Monday. In the Northern Hemisphere, short summer nights and limited darkness will keep visibility low, even at high latitudes.

NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 2.67 over the next 24 hours. For the latest breakdown, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

However, things may pick up midweek. A pair of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) is expected to arrive late on July 1 or early July 2 (UTC), just as Earth may connect to a fast solar wind stream. This could boost geomagnetic activity to G1–G2 (Minor to Moderate) storm levels and bring auroras to higher latitudes — especially in the Southern Hemisphere, where winter darkness favors visibility.

Tuesday, July 1: Chance of minor geomagnetic storms

The northern lights might appear at high latitudes tonight, thanks to solar wind flowing from a coronal mass ejection that left the sun on June 27.

There is a chance of minor (G1) geomagnetic storms, according to NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center. The storms are likely to continue into July 3, as charged particles and solar magnetic field from another coronal mass ejection on July 28 reach Earth. These could produce auroras at high latitudes, but the short hours of darkness due to summer in the Northern Hemisphere mean any resulting auroras could be limited, according to the U.K. Met Office.

NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 5.33 over the next 24 hours. For the latest breakdown, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Wednesday, July 2: Minor geomagnetic storms could spark auroras tonight

Aurora chasers, keep an eye on the skies tonight. A coronal mass ejection (CME) may brush past Earth today (July 2), possibly followed by a burst of fast solar wind from a coronal hole tomorrow.

This combo could trigger G1 (Minor) geomagnetic storm conditions, especially across high-latitude regions in both hemispheres. While short summer nights may limit aurora visibility in the Northern Hemisphere, there’s still a chance of auroras across the far north if the storms arrive on target. In the Southern Hemisphere, where winter darkness offers better conditions, skywatchers in southern New Zealand could be in luck.

The storms aren't guaranteed, and the impact is expected to be mild, but even a glancing blow from a CME can shake up Earth's magnetic field enough to spark a light show. Stay tuned to real-time aurora alerts and watch the skies tonight!

NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 4.67 over the next 24 hours. For the latest breakdown, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Thursday, July 3: Overdue CME could spark northern lights tonight

The northern lights could make a subtle return tonight as an incoming solar storm may strike Earth.

A coronal mass ejection (CME) that left the sun on June 28 may finally arrive today (July 3), although it's significantly overdue, raising doubts about its impact.

If it does reach Earth, it could trigger minor (G1) geomagnetic storm conditions, particularly at high latitudes. However, short nights in the Northern Hemisphere may limit visibility. In the south, winter darkness offers a better chance of seeing auroras, especially in southern New Zealand, where the southern lights could put on a show.

Later in the week, fast solar wind from a coronal hole may bring another chance for activity on July 4–5, though confidence in the timing and strength remains low. For now, skies are mostly quiet, but aurora chasers should stay alert tonight, just in case the late-arriving CME still has a surprise in store.

Aurora forecast for tonight and the weekend: Minor storms could spark auroras through the weekend

A mixture of lingering solar storm effects and incoming fast solar wind could give us a northern lights show over the weekend.

There was a brief uptick in geomagnetic activity last night following a weak coronal mass ejection (CME) impact. Now, Earth is set to be buffeted by a stream of fast solar wind flowing from an Earth-facing coronal hole — a region where magnetic field lines open and allow solar particles to escape more freely into space.

This high-speed solar wind could trigger minor (G1) geomagnetic storm conditions, especially on Saturday (July 5), with a slight chance of continued activity into Sunday. High-latitude regions in both hemispheres may have the best chance at catching a glimpse of the northern or southern lights, though short summer nights in the north could limit visibility.

NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 3 over the weekend. For the latest breakdown, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Monday, July 7: Quiet skies ahead as solar winds settle

After a brief burst of geomagnetic activity earlier today, conditions are now easing and the chances of seeing the northern lights tonight are fading.

Minor (G1) geomagnetic storm conditions were observed overnight, triggered by a glancing blow from a weak solar storm combined with fast solar wind from a coronal hole. But those effects are now subsiding. Solar wind speeds are gradually falling, and Earth's magnetic field is expected to remain mostly quiet to unsettled tonight.

NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 2.67 over the next 24 hours. For the latest breakdown, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Tuesday, July 8: Fading solar winds keep minor geomagnetic storm potential alive

Northern lights activity is on the decline, but skywatchers at high latitudes may still get lucky tonight.

A burst of fast solar wind from a coronal hole triggered a minor (G1) geomagnetic storm early on July 8, but conditions have been gradually settling since. Solar wind speeds remain elevated — hovering around 550 km/s — and the interplanetary magnetic field has shown some moderate variability. This lingering space weather means there's still a slight chance of active conditions and possibly brief aurora displays at polar and high-latitude regions.

That said, no major solar eruptions are in the forecast, and storm potential is expected to diminish further into Tuesday night.

NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 3 over the next 24 hours (at time of writing). For the latest breakdown, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Wednesday, July 9: Quiet aurora conditions tonight but eyes on the weekend

Don't expect much northern lights action tonight, but things could heat up again later this week.

Earth is emerging from the influence of a fast solar wind stream, which kept geomagnetic activity slightly elevated over the past couple of days. Solar wind speeds are still mildly elevated — hovering around 525 km/s — but weakening magnetic fields and erratic orientation are reducing the chance of geomagnetic storms.

Tonight’s forecast calls for quiet to unsettled conditions, with only a slight chance of active intervals (Kp4) at high latitudes according to the U.K. Met Office.

Solar activity remains low overall, though a new emerging region on the northeast limb has sparked some interest with an M-class flare. It's not yet in an Earth-facing position, but it's worth watching as it rotates into view.

Looking ahead, stronger solar wind from another coronal hole could arrive by Friday or Saturday (July 11–12), potentially bringing minor to moderate geomagnetic storms and better aurora chances.

NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 1.67 over the next 24 hours (at time of writing). For the latest breakdown, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Thursday, July 10: Quiet skies tonight but a possible solar wind boost is on the way

For those hoping to catch the northern lights tonight, the chances are not great and conditions remain quiet. However, aurora activity could ramp up heading into the weekend.

Solar wind conditions are currently waning after recent fast wind effects, with speeds dipping to around 400 km/s. This means geomagnetic activity is expected to remain quiet to unsettled (Kp1–3) tonight, with limited chances for auroras outside of high-latitude regions. In the Northern Hemisphere, short summer nights will also restrict viewing opportunities, even if activity briefly increases.

The sun remains moderately active, with a new sunspot region rotating into view on the northeastern limb. It produced an M1.3-class flare yesterday, but no Earth-directed eruptions have been detected. Space weather scientists will be keeping a watchful eye on this new and emerging sunspot region as it turns into an Earth-facing position.

Looking ahead, a fresh burst of fast solar wind from a positive polarity coronal hole is forecast to arrive by late Friday or Saturday (July 11–12), bringing a better chance of G1-class geomagnetic storms and more widespread aurora potential, according to the U.K. Met Office.

NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 1.67 over the next 24 hours (at time of writing). For the latest breakdown, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Aurora forecast for tonight and the weekend: Northern lights activity might be picking up soon

Aurora activity is expected to remain low tonight, but geomagnetic conditions could ramp up over the weekend as fast solar wind arrives from a large coronal hole.

According to the U.K. Met Office, the auroral oval will stay near background levels for now, meaning northern lights sightings tonight (July 11) are unlikely outside of high-latitude regions. However, a high-speed stream of solar wind is expected to arrive later tonight into Saturday (July 12), which could enhance auroral activity, particularly near the poles.

Any geomagnetic storm is expected to be minor (G1/Kp5), with a slight chance of isolated displays reaching areas like northern Scotland. Short summer nights in the north will still limit visibility.

Solar activity remains low to moderate. A new sunspot emerging in the northeast has the potential to produce M-class flares, but no Earth-directed coronal mass ejections (CMEs) have been detected, according to NOAA.

NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 2.67 over the weekend (at time of writing). For the latest breakdown, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Monday, July 14: Geomagnetic activity is easing but still chance of minor storms and auroras

The northern lights made brief appearances overnight as Earth experienced a minor (G1-class) geomagnetic storm, driven by fast solar wind from a positive polarity coronal hole. According to NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center, solar wind speeds peaked near 725 km/s before easing to around 575 km/s, with unsettled to active conditions persisting into today.

Tonight, there is still a slight chance of minor storm intervals (Kp 5), but the likelihood is decreasing. According to the U.K. Met Office, auroral activity will likely stay limited to high-latitude regions, such as parts of northern Canada, Alaska, and perhaps northern Scandinavia or Scotland, though short summer nights in the Northern Hemisphere continue to hamper visibility.

Tuesday, July 15: Northern lights possible at high latitudes as fast solar wind continues

The northern lights could make brief appearances tonight (July 15) at high latitudes, as Earth remains connected to a fast stream of solar wind from a large coronal hole.

The auroral oval may be slightly enhanced at times, but any visible aurora is likely to be limited to northern Scotland and similar geomagnetic latitudes, according to the U.K. Met Office. Short summer nights in the Northern Hemisphere continue to limit visibility.

Solar wind conditions are still mildly disturbed. NOAA’s Space Weather Center reported wind speeds declining from 550 to 475 km/s over the past 24 hours. Overall, geomagnetic activity is expected to remain mostly quiet to unsettled, with a slight chance of some active conditions.

NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 3.67 over the weekend (at time of writing). For the latest breakdown, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Wednesday, July 16: Northern lights possible tonight at high latitudes

There's a slight chance of northern lights tonight, but displays will likely be limited to high-latitude regions like northern Scotland, thanks to continued fast solar wind from a coronal hole on the sun.

Solar wind speeds peaked around 730 km/s earlier this week and remain elevated, keeping Earth's magnetic field mildly unsettled. According to the U.K. Met Office, the auroral oval is expected to stay slightly enhanced during this period, though any visible aurora is expected to be faint and confined to far northern locations. Long summer days will also limit viewing opportunities in the Northern Hemisphere.

NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 3 over the weekend (at the time of writing). For the latest breakdown, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Northern Hemisphere aurora forecast courtesy of the Met Office

Thursday, July 17: Fair chance of northern lights tonight as fast solar wind continues

There is a continued chance of minor geomagnetic storm activity tonight (July 17), which could bring northern lights to high-latitude locations, though sightings will likely be limited to far northern regions such as northern Scotland, according to the U.K. Met Office.

Short summer nights will also make viewing more difficult in the Northern Hemisphere.

The aurora boost is being driven by fast solar wind from a large coronal hole on the sun. Solar wind speeds have remained elevated, peaking briefly at strong levels near 730 km/s.

NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 3 over the next 24 hours (at the time of writing). For the latest breakdown, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

While aurora visibility may fade by the weekend, some activity could persist into July 18. Keep an eye on the skies if you're far north and have darkness on your side.

Aurora forecast for tonight and the weekend: Slim chance of northern lights this weekend as geomagnetic activity settles

The northern lights put on a brief show earlier this week, but don’t expect much aurora activity tonight or over the weekend. The auroral oval has returned to background levels, and no significant geomagnetic disturbances are expected in the coming days, according to the U.K. Met Office.

Fast solar wind from a coronal hole continues to flow past Earth, but it's gradually weakening. Solar wind speeds peaked near 789 km/s on July 17 and have since begun to ease. The resulting geomagnetic activity has quieted down, with only a slight chance of isolated active periods remaining, especially today (July 18).

NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 3 over the weekend (at the time of writing). For the latest breakdown, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

With short summer nights in the Northern Hemisphere and only background-level activity forecast, aurora sightings are unlikely unless you’re at very high latitudes. Things are similarly calm in the south, with only a slim chance of auroras brushing the skies over Tasmania or southern New Zealand.

Monday July 21: Slim chance of northern lights tonight but storm potential builds midweek

It's quiet out there tonight for aurora chasers.

Geomagnetic activity remains low, and both the U.K. Met Office and NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center are forecasting calm conditions with no significant northern lights expected over North America — or anywhere else — tonight (July 21).

That said, solar activity is gradually increasing. A C-class solar flare and filament eruption occurred over the weekend, launching a coronal mass ejection (CME). While it's not headed directly for Earth, forecasters say it might deliver a glancing blow late on Tuesday or early Wednesday (July 22–23). At the same time, a stream of fast solar wind is expected to arrive from a coronal hole, potentially boosting auroral activity.

If everything lines up, the best chance for northern lights will come midweek, particularly late Tuesday into Wednesday night, over high-latitude locations like Fairbanks, Alaska, or northern parts of Canada such as Yellowknife and Whitehorse.

Tuesday, July 22: Northern lights possible tonight as solar wind picks up

There's a fair chance of northern lights tonight, especially for skywatchers in higher-latitude regions like Fairbanks, Alaska, northern Manitoba, or across Canada's Northwest Territories.

According to the U.K. Met Office, a stream of fast solar wind from a coronal hole is expected to reach Earth late Tuesday into Wednesday (July 22–23), bringing the chance of minor (G1) geomagnetic storm conditions. If this solar wind aligns with overnight hours and skies are clear, it could spark some auroras over northern parts of North America.

NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center is also calling for unsettled to active geomagnetic conditions beginning tonight, with the best chance for storming peaking on Wednesday. While tonight's display could be brief or subdued, it marks the beginning of a potentially more active period for aurora hunters this week, so keep your eyes on the sky!

NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 5 over the next 24 hours (at time of writing). For the latest breakdown, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Wednesday, July 23: Northern lights possible tonight as fast solar wind hits Earth

The northern lights could be visible tonight across high-latitude regions as Earth is hit by a stream of fast solar wind, triggering minor (G1) geomagnetic storm conditions.

If skies are clear, aurora may be spotted from locations like Fairbanks, Alaska, northern Manitoba, or along the U.S.-Canada border in North Dakota and Minnesota. While visibility is most likely at higher latitudes, stronger bursts could briefly push the aurora further south.

Both the U.K. Met Office and NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center expect unsettled to active geomagnetic conditions to continue tonight, with a good chance of G1 storming. A weak glancing blow from a recent coronal mass ejection (CME) may also give activity an extra boost.

NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 4 over the next 24 hours (at time of writing). For the latest breakdown, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

Thursday, July 24: Slight chance of northern lights at high latitudes

A fast stream of solar wind is headed towards Earth tonight thanks to a coronal mass ejection (CME) that erupted from the sun on July 23, which means the northern lights could be visible tonight at high latitudes.

Minor (G1) geomagnetic storms are possible tonight, according to the U.K. Met Office, although NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center disagrees. "No S1 (Minor) or greater solar radiation storms are expected," NOAA wrote in its three-day forecast. We could see auroras farther south this weekend, however, according to the Met Office.

The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center projects that the Kp index will peak at 4.67 over the next 24 hours. For an up-to-date breakdown of timings, check out NOAA's 3-day forecast.

In October 2024, scientists announced that the sun has reached solar maximum, a period of heightened solar activity and sunspot frequency that occurs during the sun's approximately 11-year solar cycle. During the solar maximum period, the sun emits more energized particles as it erupts with coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and solar flares, which can trigger geomagnetic storms and intensify aurora displays. Now that solar maximum is underway, it's understandable that many declare THIS is the year for the northern lights. However, scientists believe the best aurora activity in this solar cycle is still to come.

Space.com spoke to solar physicist and northern lights expert Pål Brekke and solar and astrophysical researcher Scott McIntosh to learn more about when you can expect the highest auroral activity this solar cycle and how to make the very most of your aurora-hunting efforts. Spoiler alert: you may have more time than expected to plan your next trip to see the northern lights.

It's good news for aurora chasers as peak auroral activity occurs a few years after solar maximum, according to Brekke. This means the best time to see the northern lights and the southern lights will be during the 2026-2027 aurora season.

But why?

The northern lights (aurora borealis) and the southern lights (aurora australis) are created when energized particles from the sun hit Earth's atmosphere and are funneled toward the poles by our planet's magnetic field. As the particles are redirected toward the poles, they interact with our atmosphere, by depositing energy, causing the atmosphere to fluoresce, or emit visible light. We have come to recognize this fluorescence as the northern and southern lights.

"As mentioned, the aurora activity varies with the solar cycle. However, the peak in the aurora activity (if you plot the Ap or Kp-index) comes a few years after solar maximum. Thus, we should have several years still with very high aurora activity." Brekke explains.

For anyone familiar with aurora forecasting apps and software, the Kp-index is something you've likely come across.

"It is the global geomagnetic activity index based on 3-hour measurements from ground-based magnetometers around the world," Brekke explains. Likewise, the Ap-index is a similar geomagnetic index driven by the sun's magnetism and solar wind. Together, Kp and Ap are good proxies for aurora activity.

If you plot solar activity, indicated by the number of sunspots on the surface, and the Kp-index, there is a clear variation of aurora activity with the approximately 11-year solar cycle. But note that the peak in aurora activity actually occurs a few years after solar maximum. You can view an interactive graph of this activity here courtesy of GRZ German Research Centre for Geosciences.

"This means that 2026-2027 should be great for hunting the northern and southern lights" Brekke told Space.com.

But why this so-called "aurora lag"? Brekke explains one reason is that Earth-directed coronal holes are more frequent in the decaying phase and the solar minimum period.

Coronal holes are dark regions in the sun's corona when viewed in extreme ultraviolet and soft X-ray solar images. Like sunspots, they appear darker because they are cooler than the surrounding plasma. Coronal holes are areas of open, unipolar magnetic fields (where the magnetic field predominantly has one polarity, either north or south) that allow solar wind to escape more easily into space, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Space Weather Prediction Center (NOAA SWPC).

When directed at Earth, the stream of solar wind flowing from a coronal hole can impact Earth's magnetosphere, triggering geomagnetic storm conditions and resulting in impressive aurora displays. Larger and more persistent coronal holes can sometimes remain for several solar rotations — 27-day periods, according to NOAA SWPC.

Coronal holes are the main driver of aurora activity during periods of low solar activity. Even at solar minimum, there is a lot of aurora activity. "It never drops close to zero as the sunspot activity almost does. So even during solar minimum, you can experience great auroras at high latitudes," Brekke continues.

Another factor affecting the apparent peak in auroral activity after solar maximum is that the space weather environment after the solar maximum period and before solar minimum gets a little bit "complicated".

To understand why we need to first break up the solar cycle into two parts, McIntosh describes them as the "light side," activity driven by active regions such as solar flares and CMEs; and the "dark side," activity driven by coronal holes.

Both of these phases contribute to geomagnetic activity. During solar maximum, we see an increase in the "light side" of activity, through increased frequency and strength of solar flares and accompanying CMEs.

After solar maximum, during the declining phase of the solar cycle, the "light side" and "dark side" of solar activity overlap in time. This makes the space weather environment rather messy.

McIntosh's research has discovered that the sun's 22-year magnetic cycle known as the Hale Cycle is crucial to understanding why we have this overlap between the "light" and "dark" solar activity.

"This is the battle between the present Hale Cycle and the next one — the one that will produce sunspot cycle 26 in 8 years," McIntosh told Space.com.

"The next magnetic Hale Cycle is a source of coronal holes as are the decay of solar active regions on the present one — so in short the number of coronal holes increases for a few years post maximum and this makes for a very complex space environment." McIntosh continued.

This complexity drives Earth's magnetosphere wild, resulting in increased geomagnetic activity, according to McIntosh.

"In my view, it is the overlapping of the Sun's magnetic hale cycles that is the primary cause of the increase in Kp post maximum," McIntosh told Space.com

"With this solar cycle I guess we will be working to establish that as fact and not just a hypothesis," McIntosh continued.

The turbulent space weather environment during the post-solar maximum period will be a headache for space weather forecasters and technology in low earth orbit. But it's good news for aurora chasers and those wanting to catch a glimpse of the northern lights during this solar cycle.

Top tips for seeing the northern lights

We have had some incredible aurora displays deep into mid-latitudes during this solar cycle but to give yourself the very best chance of seeing stunning northern lights, you'll need to travel to high latitudes.

"The northern lights can be observed most frequently within a region around the Earth's magnetic pole, called the auroral zone. This is a band where you have the biggest chance of seeing the northern lights each clear night," Brekke told Space.com.

The auroral zone, or auroral oval, spans northern Finland, Norway, Sweden, Iceland and southern Greenland as well as Northern Canada, Alaska and northern Russia.

Brekke recommends avoiding city lights as best you can and finding a dark place away from the city on a summit or open country with a clear view of the northern horizon.

Also, it's worth noting that amazing aurora displays are not just reserved for those of us watching from the ground. Lucky passengers on intercontinental flights also have a great opportunity to see the northern lights.

"Normally all long westbound flights are flying at night time and they are often flying far north along the great circle. A flight from the USA to Europe or China will bring you up close to the Arctic and you will most often see a great view of the northern lights." Brekke told Space.com.

Next time you book an intercontinental flight with a route along the great circle Brekke recommends booking a window seat on the side of the plane with a view of northern skies.

Many rare events occurred this month in the skies, leading to some gorgeous astrophotography. October 2024 saw an annular solar eclipse above the moai statues of Easter Island, a powerful geomagnetic storm that filled the skies with eerie colors, a ghostly comet visible to the naked eye, another comet vanishing as it flew into the sun, the largest supermoon of the year and more.

Check out our gallery below for a look at the best celestial treats of this year's Halloween season.

On Oct. 2, an annular solar eclipse was visible for many parts of the Pacific Ocean, southern Chile and southern Argentina. During the event, the moon passed in front of the sun while close enough to Earth to leave a dazzling "ring of fire" in the sky.

Photographer Josh Dury caught the annular solar eclipse hanging in the sky above one of the storied moai of Easter Island like a ghostly eye staring down at Earth.

Later in the month on Oct. 10, a powerful geomagnetic storm created colorful auroras that turned the sky into an uncanny light show of reds, purples and greens.

Space.com's own Josh Dinner captured the spooky hues of the aurora over Griffey Lake in Bloomington, Indiana.

A week later on Oct. 17, the Full Hunter's Moon lit up the sky like an unearthly phantom. 

The Hunter's Moon was the largest supermoon of the year due to its proximity to Earth during its full moon phase. 

This year's Halloween season saw another ghostly visitor to the night sky: comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS). This icy visitor from the outer solar system put on a frightfully good show for photographers throughout the month.

Photographer Raghuvamsh Chavali caught the comet hanging in the sky beside the uncanny glow of the Milky Way near Turner Falls, Oklahoma on Oct. 19.

Space.com's Josh Dinner caught the comet shining near Bloomington, Indiana on Oct. 16, hanging in the sky above a barn like the spooky visitor from outer space it is.

Later in the month, another comet met a fiery end as it disintegrated when it flew too close to the sun. Some had hoped the comet would be visible in time to become a "Halloween comet," but a sun-watching spacecraft caught the comet's demise on camera when it evaporated on Oct. 28, 2024.

To end the Halloween season, the sky treated us with a visitor above an appropriately named landmark: a fireball over Lake Erie. 

Over 550 witnesses caught the apparition in the sky, which occurred on the evening of Oct. 21, 2024.

Want to catch the next spooky visitor to our night sky? Check out our guides on our best telescopes for beginners or the best binoculars to find the gear you need to see the next visitor from outer space speed past our planet.

And don't miss our guide to the night sky for tonight, updated daily with what you need to know to catch celestial spectacles such as these in any season.

Happy Halloween! 

So, when faced with a rather grizzly forecast of heavy rain, clouds and wind during my northern lights trip to Norway's Vesterålen archipelago, I was relieved I was going with The Northern Lights Company because the tour offered much more than auroras. With so many daytime activities to keep us occupied, I knew that even if the weather wasn't in our favor, it would still be an amazing trip.

And I was right.

The Northern Lights Company offers a wealth of tours for people who wish to see and photograph the northern lights and experience the best the beautiful Vesterålen archipelago has to offer. The small group of eight people was the perfect size to keep the experience intimate. Tour director Chris Percival was extremely attentive, knowledgeable and fun. The small group size and entertaining tour leader made for a very special trip.

Related: Where to see the northern lights (a guide)

First, the landscape was jaw-dropping. I hadn't visited this part of the world in autumn before, and the colors took my breath away. The silver birch forests had turned a fiery gold against a backdrop of deep-green pine trees and a dusting of snow on the mountaintops. With this landscape, combined with the rich blues from the water lapping along the fjord, I felt like I had stepped into a painting.

We stayed at the Scandic Sortland Hotel, which made for the perfect base to rest up and enjoy a lot of great food before we headed out on each adventure. I could not stop staring out the window as we drove along the rugged landscape steeped in beauty. How anyone can focus on the road is beyond me — I'm relieved I wasn't driving! There was just too much to see!

On our first day, we visited the Norwegian aerospace company Andøya Space, toured their visitor center and attended a fascinating talk by astrophysicist José González Pérez. He introduced Andøya Space and its history including the "Norwegian rocket incident". In 1995, due to a series of miscommunications Russian officials briefly misinterpreted a Norwegian scientific rocket, a Black Brant XII, launched from Andøya Rocket Range on Jan.25, 1995, to be a nuclear attack. The incident very nearly triggered an accidental nuclear war. Pérez then delved into the science, history and myths surrounding the northern lights, offering an insightful and engaging perspective.

Then, once we were aurora "experts," we stepped into the center's interactive "Spaceship Aurora" simulation game, where, if we were lucky, we'd make it to space and back safely so we could continue the rest of our trip. You guessed it: We were successful, minus a few oxygen and navigation issues, and we made it back in one piece — phew!

Located in the rugged Arctic landscape on Andøya Island, the new spaceport is among the most visually stunning in the world. It boasts an exceptional name: "Andøya" translates to "Duck Island," and I eagerly anticipate the launch of orbital rockets from the Duck Island Spaceport.

Andøya Space's Sub-Orbital division has been a leading European launch provider for sounding rockets and scientific balloons since the company first launched a sounding rocket on Aug. 18, 1962. Andøya Spaceport is gearing up for its first orbital rocket launches, which will carry payloads of up to 1.6 tons (1.5 metric tons) into orbit. These launches will help meet the increasing demand for European launch capacity and support the region's growing space industry.

After I had spent the day learning about auroras, my anticipation to see them was building — but, unfortunately, so were the clouds. The weather had been rather bleak since we arrived, and it seemed to be worsening. But it didn't dampen our spirits: To my surprise, everyone shared the same positive outlook — that it's all part of the experience, and aurora chasing is full of uncertainty. Because our Northern Lights Company tour offered a wealth of additional daytime activities, it almost took the pressure off the northern lights at night. If we saw them, it would be great — but if not, we'd still have a blast. I remained hopeful that our luck would change; every glimmer of blue sky fed the optimism.

On the second day, we enjoyed a fascinating glimpse into the culture of the Sami, an Indigenous people who live in parts of northern Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. In Norway, approximately 2,600 Sami still make a living from herding reindeer, and we visited a family who practices this way of life.

We enjoyed a fascinating and poignant talk about Sami life from their social oppression and discrimination to their role in society today. We learned how the Sami were once regarded by many as a "backward" or "uncultured" society, and faced years of persecution. But the Sami educated us about their rich cultural history and inherent understanding of nature. They also taught us that they had more than 300 words for snow, more than 200 words for reindeer and not a single word for war. A powerful message indeed.

Fortunately, nowadays Sami culture is more widely respected and the establishment of the Sami Parliament in 1989 is helping to improve the Sami’s political position and protect Sami interests. According to the Sami Parliament of Norway it "identifies its own priorities and develops its own policies, based on its mandate from the Sámi People and dialogue with our communities."

We were then led outside to meet and feed some reindeer. I was amazed by how gentle and sociable they were; they hastily gobbled up handfuls of food pellets. When the food ran out, it was time to feed ourselves, so we headed back inside for lunch — with reindeer soup on the menu! Those who had the reindeer soup thoroughly enjoyed it. As for me, I am what the Sami call a "bad hunter" — that is, vegetarian. I opted for a delicious tomato soup instead.

That night, my aurora alert and space weather apps kept pinging as the geomagnetic activity surged to G4 levels throughout dinner. It felt like it could be the night! Unfortunately, the weather still wasn't cooperating.

With the odds stacked against us but a slim chance of catching a break in the clouds, we headed to a beach near Nykvåg, with our fingers (and toes) crossed! I was juiced up with excitement. We set off in the driving rain, with everyone hunting for a star to signal darkness and an all-important break in the clouds. While busy looking at the sky, we almost missed a moose standing by the side of the road! The car slowed as we approached the animal, giving us time to say a quick hello before continuing our venture west.

As we arrived at the skywatching spot, a brief break in the clouds revealed a stunning sight: a vivid, ruby-red aurora filling the open sky. The rich red hues illuminated the gap, creating an unforgettable moment. I was in awe; I had never seen an aurora this pink and red. These are usually observed only by those lucky enough to catch auroras while looking northward from the south. But remarkably, the geomagnetic storm was so strong, it had shifted the auroral oval farther south. That was good news for skywatchers across Central Europe and North America — they were in for a great show.

The shift of the oval meant the peak of activity was no longer overhead; it had moved slightly southward. But the dreamy pinks and reds did not disappoint. We stayed out for a couple of hours until the clouds swept back in and covered the view of the glorious light show. It was time for bed.

The next day, we headed out on a sea eagle safari aboard a RIB (rigid inflatable boat), zipping across the jaw-dropping landscape in the hope of spotting the fourth-largest species of eagle in the world. It didn't take long for the first sea eagle to appear. They were accustomed to our guide, and they knew fish was on the menu when they spotted an RIB filled with fluorescent tourists.

Our guide tossed a frozen fish from the boat, and we soon witnessed the sheer power of a sea eagle with its impressive 6.5-foot (2-meter) wingspan swooping down and catching the fish. The fish were frozen to prevent opportunistic seagulls from snatching them before the eagles had their chance. Whereas the gulls couldn't grip the frozen fish with their beaks, they were no match for the sea eagles' razor-sharp talons.

There were also younger sea eagles that were still refining their hunting skills. A bit unsteady in flight, they often needed multiple attempts to catch the fish, frequently fumbling or dropping it in midair or missing it entirely. After a couple of hours, we returned to base, and the group enjoyed a fresh fish soup. (The "bad hunter" menu included salad, egg and warm bread.)

That night, the weather forecast appeared more favorable, though still not ideal. But I was optimistic.

Percival somehow managed to find us a sliver of clear sky that opened up above us and revealed one of the most dazzling aurora shows I've ever seen. The colossal green curtain of light descended upon us, dancing to the whims of Earth's magnetic field.

The weather was incredibly unpredictable, alternating between heavy rain and clear skies. The wind would pick up and then settle down just as quickly. That night, we explored several stunning locations, each offering unique views. I was thrilled to see the aurora was so bright, it reflected clearly off the water.

That was certainly a night to remember.

On our final full day of the tour, unfortunately, we couldn't travel south to the Lofoten Islands as planned, due to heavy rain and strong winds. But instead, we were soon headed on a much shorter drive to Stokmarknes, where we enjoyed a few hours at the Hurtigruten Museum. A wonderfully quirky attraction whereby a museum was built around an entire ship, MS Finnmarken, is the ultimate "ship in a bottle." Visitors can walk around inside MS Finnmarken and get a taste of what it was like to voyage on a ship from 1956. You can even enjoy lunch inside the old dining room and imagine what it was like back in the ship's heyday, before its retirement in 1993.

During our visit, we explored the captivating stories and lives of both the seamen and passengers of the Hurtigruten throughout the years. We gained insight into the crucial role the Hurtigruten has played in supporting remote communities along the Norwegian coast. Having had the pleasure of experiencing two Hurtigruten voyages — one on the hunt for the northern lights and the other to experience the midnight sun during the summer solstice — I enjoyed learning more about its unique place in history.

Next, Percival took us on a scenic tour of Hadseløya island. During a brief pause in the rain, we seized the opportunity to take a short stroll to a charming little beach. I could see snowcapped mountains dotted along the horizon; they faded in and out of view through the clouds like a dramatic Arctic mirage. Unfortunately, the weather prevented us from hunting auroras that night.

On our final morning, the sun finally made an appearance, teasing us with warm, rich hues as we headed to the airport — talk about timing.

This was a truly unforgettable trip, for all the right reasons! The experience highlighted the importance of planning a northern lights trip that offers more than just auroras. Although we were treated to two fantastic nights of light shows, the weather thwarted our efforts to see them the other nights.

As I always remind people, the northern lights are not guaranteed, no matter where you go. You can have the perfect geomagnetic conditions, but if the weather doesn't cooperate, you're left staring at a thick blanket of clouds. Similarly, you can have the clearest skies, but if the space weather is dull, you'll be left in the dark.

Thankfully, on my trip with The Northern Lights Company, there were so many activities to enjoy throughout the day, a lack of auroras wouldn't have been a disaster. Even if we hadn't seen the northern lights, we would have been entertained and gained rich insight into Norwegian and Indigenous culture and life.

You can't control the weather but you can control how you choose to experience it and during my trip with The Northern Lights Company I can safely say that we made the very most of it, capitalizing on the better weather conditions wherever possible. So if you're seeking a fun, informative and personal experience that gives you a great chance of seeing the northern lights, look no further than The Northern Lights Company.

Full disclaimer: Space.com participated in a press trip organized by The Northern Lights Company, which provided a subsidized tour. All additional travel and expenses were covered independently by Space.com.

The discovery was made almost by chance while the team was studying satellite data that showed high-energy and high-speed "hot" electrons could be dislodged from the inner radiation belt — a region of charged particles wrapped around our planet that's held in place by Earth's protective magnetic bubble, known as the magnetosphere.

This research could help scientists protect satellites and other instruments in orbit from damage, and assist in protecting astronauts from potentially lethal radiation on future space missions. It also suggests that space weather and Earth weather are more intertwined than previously suspected.

"These particles are the scary ones or what some people call 'killer electrons.' They can penetrate metal on satellites, hit circuit boards, and can be carcinogenic if they hit a person in space," team leader and University of Colorado Boulder researcher Max Feinland said in a statement.

Related: SpaceX's Polaris Dawn astronauts will make a daring trek into Earth's Van Allen radiation belt

Killer electrons charge!

Wrapped around Earth are two belts of trapped high-energy particles, held in place by the magnetosphere. These are known as the Van Allen radiation belts.

Killer electrons race through these belts at nearly the speed of light, carrying with them a great deal of energy. Not only can these particles penetrate satellite shielding, but they can also cause microscopic lightning strikes that can damage — or even destroy — vital and delicate spacecraft components.

The inner region of the belts is considered to begin at an altitude of around 600 miles (966 kilometers) over Earth, while the outer layer is thought to start at around 12,000 miles (19,312 km) over our planet's surface.

The Van Allen belts serve as a loose barrier between Earth's atmosphere and its space environment. They are also dynamic, capable of moving and changing. Scientists have known for some time that charged particles can fall from the outer radiation belt toward Earth. Low-energy, or "cold," particles have also been detected falling from the more stable inner radiation belt.

This is the first hint that high-energy charged particles can also "rain" from the inner belt, which had been considered more stable. It's also the first hint that this "electron rain" can be triggered by lightning.

"Space weather is really driven both from above and below," team member Lauren Blum of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at CU Boulder said in the statement. "Typically, the inner belt is thought to be kind of boring. It's stable. It's always there."

The team theorizes that when lightning flashes in the sky over Earth, radio waves are launched toward space. If these radio waves hit electrons in the radiation belts around our planet, they can shake loose electrons, causing "lightning-induced electron precipitation" or "electron rain."

While analyzing data from NASA's now-decommissioned Solar, Anomalous, and Magnetospheric Particle Explorer (SAMPEX) satellite, Feinland saw "clumps" of high-energy electrons moving through Earth's inner radiation belt. He took these observations to Blum, who told him: "That's not where these are supposed to be."

Cosmic pinball

Investigating this further, the duo identified 45 surges of high-energy electrons in the inner radiation belts occurring in the decade between 1996 and 2006. Feinland then compared this data to records of lightning strikes over North America. What emerged was a correlation between lightning strikes and peaks in electrons, which occurred around a second after lightning struck the ground.

The team thinks that when lightning strikes, it begins a frantic game of pinball that encompasses the entire Earth. Triggered radio waves ripple upward into space, striking electrons in the inner radiation belt.

This acts like an "add ball" feature in this figurative pinball game, dropping electrons that then chaotically bounce between the northern and southern hemispheres of Earth. This phase of the process lasts just 0.2 seconds. Some of the electrons frantically shuttling between our planet's northern and southern hemispheres then drop into our atmosphere.

"You have a big blob of electrons that bounces and then returns and bounces again," Blum said. "You'll see this initial signal, and it will decay away."

Blum, Feinland, and colleagues don't currently know how often these bouts of "killer electron rains" occur. One theory is that they are most common during periods when the sun is especially active and blasts more high-energy electrons at Earth to be grabbed by the magnetosphere and replenish the Van Allen belts.

The team's research was published on October 8 in the journal Nature Communications.

Solar activity waxes and wanes on an 11-year cycle. The current cycle, known as Solar Cycle 25, began in December 2019 and is still in its maximum phase, experts say.

"Currently, we're about two years into the maximum period, so we're anticipating another year or so of maximum phase before we really enter the declining phase, which will lead us back to solar minimum," Lisa Upton, co-chair of the Solar Cycle 25 Prediction Panel and lead scientist at Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas, said in a press conference on Tuesday (Oct. 15). 

Solar flares, CMEs and dancing auroras

Each solar cycle features a rise and fall in the sun's natural magnetic activity, as well as the number of sunspots that develop. Sunspots, which are relatively cool and dark regions on our star's face, arise when the magnetic field of the sun experiences a disturbance. 

Related: 'It was 3 hours of magic': Spectacular auroras thrill stargazers (photos)

Sunspots serve as launch pads for solar flares, powerful explosions that blast high-energy light out into space. Flares are often accompanied by coronal mass ejections (CMEs), huge eruptions of magnetic field and plasma that can generate geomagnetic storms when they hit Earth. Those storms can boost auroral displays, as people around the world saw last week. But they can also have negative impacts, disrupting power grids on Earth and affecting astronauts and satellites in space. 

Solar Cycle 25 has featured a more prominent maximum phase than its predecessor but is still considered a smaller cycle by forecasters, according to Upton.

"Smaller cycles are long, so their maximum phases are longer, lasting three or four years," she said. Such cycles are "also more likely to have a double or even triple peak, which makes it more difficult to say for certain that maximum has occurred."

During solar maximum, there's a higher possibility of impacts from space weather to Earth. A great example of this occurred with the solar storms of May 2024, when several CMEs slammed into our planet, triggering what scientists say may have been the most powerful aurora display in the past 500 years.

"Solar Cycle 25 sunspot activity has slightly exceeded expectations; however, despite seeing a few large storms, they aren't larger than what we might expect during the maximum phase of the cycle," Upton said.

If there is another year or two left in Solar Cycle 25's max phase, it could affect voyaging astronauts: NASA plans to launch its crewed Artemis 2 and Artemis 3 moon missions during that time frame. Crewmembers will be far from the protection of Earth's atmosphere and magnetic field and so will be more susceptible to the radiation thrown off by our star.

Preparing for the storm

"When we do get these big geomagnetic storms, like last week, it can interfere with the layout of the atmosphere above us called the ionosphere. Signals can be bouncing up from the ground off the ionosphere, and signals coming from satellites have to go through the ionosphere to receivers on the ground. During the big storms, it can be interfered with, and we see it all the time," Bill Murtagh, program coordinator at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC), said during Tuesday's press conference. 

"Last week and back in May, high-frequency communications with aircraft were significantly impacted," he added. "If we don't issue any relative warnings and nobody knows, we're going to have some problems. It's so important we take action with new technologies working closely with various groups, private sector and government to assess their vulnerability and work on the mitigation strategies so they can prepare and take action."

SWPC forecasters say that, while we remain in this current solar maximum, there will likely be more solar and geomagnetic storms, with the potential for some to be relatively large and significant. But we can minimize the impacts on Earth and in space through advanced communication efforts.

"We are becoming a spacefaring race; we're putting more and more assets out into space and moving to other places in our solar system," Upton said. "As we increase our assets out in space, venture to the moon, Mars, and anywhere else that we might want, we're going to need to increase our ability to understand space weather, not just here at Earth but across the entire solar system."