The Northern Lights could be visible as far south as New York and Idaho tonight due to a "coronal hole" sending streams of charged particles toward Earth.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) issued a G2 geomagnetic storm watch for Tuesday, March 25, around 7 a.m. Eastern Time yesterday (March 24). Just before midnight, the alert was upgraded to a storm warning. Like hurricanes, geomagnetic storms follow a 5-point severity scale. G2 storms are considered "moderate" in strength and could cause minor technological disruptions such as radio blackouts, GPS malfunctions, and an increased chance of spotting auroras at lower latitudes than usual.
"Watches of this level are not uncommon," according to NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center; G2-strength geomagnetic storms hit Earth about 360 days in each 11-year solar cycle. These storms can affect spacecraft orbits and cause weak power grid fluctuations at high latitudes, but they mostly cause "manageable effects to some technological infrastructure," according to NOAA.
The Space Weather Prediction Center issued today's storm watch because a "coronal hole" on the sun is facing Earth. Coronal holes are cooler, darker regions of the sun's outermost atmosphere (the corona) that are less dense than normal, allowing high-speed solar winds — streams of charged particles — to escape from the sun and gush outward into space. Today, one of these escaped high-speed streams will be pointed directly at Earth.
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Earth's magnetic field deflects most of the solar wind, but some charged particles make it through into the upper layers of the atmosphere. When the solar wind hits Earth's atmosphere, charged particles shoot toward Earth's poles, agitating atmospheric molecules along the way and forcing them to emit energy in the form of colorful auroras.
In October 2024, the sun reached its solar maximum period, the most active part of its 11-year cycle. During this period, the sun's magnetic poles flip, and space weather events like geomagnetic storms and solar flares occur more frequently. Scientists predict that the solar maximum will continue for at least a few more months if not longer, providing additional opportunities to spot the Northern Lights.
On Tuesday, "the aurora may become visible over some northern and upper Midwest states from New York to Idaho," according to a statement from NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center. The best chances of spotting an aurora are on dark, clear nights between 10pm and 2am, far from artificial lights. You can see auroras with the naked eye, but their colors might look even more vivid through a smartphone screen.
Conditions for weaker G1 storms will last through Wednesday (March 26). These weaker geomagnetic storms affect technological systems less strongly, but they still produce auroras at high latitudes, according to NOAA.
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