Northern lights illuminate sky Thursday, another chance to see aurora in northern Minnesota Friday
MINNEAPOLIS — Minnesota saw a beautiful northern lights show on Thursday night thanks to a geomagnetic storm that will continue on Friday.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center said a coronal mass ejection (CME) left the sun on Wednesday around 9 p.m. CST, and traveled 1.5 million miles an hour to arrive at Earth on Thursday after 10 a.m.
Minnesotans from Linden Hills to Duluth were able to see the illuminations, which ranged in color from red to green to purple.
"This is a very speedy CME. It's the fastest CME that we've really measured that had a total-Earth component in the solar cycle so far," said space weather forecaster Shawn Dahl.
On Thursday, the storm was rated at a G4, which means it was severe. On Friday morning, the storm is rated a G2, or moderate level. The storm is expected to wane throughout the day, but Minnesotans who live up north could still see some of the lights in the evening.
Dahl's team says the storm "could impact ongoing recovery efforts for Hurricanes Helene and Milton" due to possible disruptions to communication satellites, high-frequency radio signals, GPS systems and power grids that have already been strained by the massive storms.
NOAA has a spacecraft located 1 million miles from Earth which alerts the prediction center when solar flares are between 15-30 minutes from reaching our planet. Nevertheless, space storm forecasting is a pretty unpredictable science.
You can watch the storm's activity in real time on the prediction center's website.
Why does there seem to be more northern lights this year?
Bryan Brasher, the prediction center's project manager, says we're at the peak of Solar Cycle 25, with each cycle lasting about 11 years. He says this cycle has been much more active than predicted.
All that activity has given Minnesotans plenty of opportunities to marvel at dancing light shows in the sky, with the most recent batch of auroras visible in the Twin Cities and other parts of the state this past weekend.
This current storm could even rival the one in May, which produced incredible auroras over Minnesota, but it's unclear if it will be as strong or will last as long.
The prediction center says CMEs are "tremendous explosions of solar and embedded magnetic fields." When a CME hits and envelopes our planet's magnetic field, the collision of its electrically-charged particles with our atmosphere can produce dazzling waves of color in the sky.
Check out these tips from the pros on photographing the northern lights.
