Northern lights could be visible in Minnesota this week

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The Northern Lights above Swanville, Minnesota, on March 23, 2023. (Jesse Hollermann)

MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) - The northern lights could be visible across Minnesota Monday night — so long as conditions are right. 

What to know

NOAA’s Storm Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) issued a geomagnetic storm watch from Monday through Wednesday, alerting of a potential G3 (strong) solar storm on Tuesday. Space weather forecasters said the watch was issued after solar activity was elevated through the weekend with multiple solar flares and associated coronal mass ejections (CME). These CMEs create the dazzling northern lights. 

Typically, you can only see the northern lights near the poles, but during strong solar storms, the aurora can be visible further south, including Minnesota and beyond. 

Thanks to this storm, the northern lights could be visible over Minnesota, as well as the northern United States and Canada on Monday night and early Tuesday. The green shaded spots on the map below are where the aurora could be visible, with the darker green areas on the map having the highest probability of seeing the show. 

The northern lights are difficult to forecast. FOX 9's Cody Matz explains more about this here. 

Aurora could be hard to see

The northern lights can be a lot more difficult to see in the summer months for a few reasons. FOX 9's Cody Matz explains:

There is a lot less darkness in the summer. The sun generally needs to be at least 15 degrees below the horizon to get past what's considered to be nautical twilight. So, you have roughly six hours total of pitch-black to be able to see them.

However, the not-so-obvious thing that can obscure the northern lights this time of year are particulates in the atmosphere that block viewing, which would be any wildfire smoke — which will be abundant Monday night — and then high moisture levels, which can also obscure the horizons. Moisture levels will be quite high through Monday night as well. 

Lastly, cloud cover could also obscure the view Monday night. Increased cloud cover will be possible late Monday as storms approach from the west. So, it's unlikely we see anything, but the chances aren't zero, so may the odds be ever in your favor.

Tips for seeing the northern lights

Here are some quick facts to keep in mind when you attempt to see the northern lights:

• Always get as far away as possible from light pollution and large cities. While a strong CME would make it possible for the aurora to be visible in a city, this is seldom the case, especially the farther south your location is in the U.S.
• You will NOT see the aurora if there are clouds. Remember that the aurora lives dozens of miles above our weather, so any clouds will obstruct your view.
• Try to get an unobstructed view of the northern horizon. A strong CME could make the aurora appear more overhead. But it is far more likely that many of us will only be able to see them lower than 30 degrees above the northern horizon.
• The aurora is extremely variable and changes quickly over very short periods of time. Even some of the strongest CME's can have very short lifespans where the aurora are visible. You may sit and watch the horizon for hours only to get a sporadic 5-minute show of brilliant colors. In most cases, there is just no way to know for sure how the event will unfold for every location.
• Be extremely skeptical of any aurora forecast more than 48 hours away. When a CME is discharged from the sun, it will take roughly 36 to 60 hours to reach Earth. There is no way to predict when a CME will occur, so aurora forecasts are entirely reactionary and not predictive. If you see a story/post/comment expecting the northern lights to be visible more than two days away, I would not consider that credible information.
• In the Lower 48 states, the aurora will not look as good with your eyes as what many professional cameras can capture and the corresponding images that are then posted online. Cameras can be far more sensitive to the variation in light and color with long exposures compared to the human eye. Only when the aurora are high in the sky will they appear close to what is seen from a long exposure photograph.
• The strongest CME's can actually cause significant issues for humans. If they are strong enough, transformers at power stations can be overloaded, damaging the power grid, and creating large blackouts that would have the potential to last for weeks, depending on how badly damaged the power grid is. This type of event is VERY rare, so don't lose sleep over it. But it is possible and slightly more likely during peak sunspot years. The more likely scenario for stronger waves is that radios become inoperable thanks to static, and satellites temporarily lose the ability to communicate with transmitters here at the surface. So things like GPS, cell phones, and satellite TV would stop working for a relatively short period of time as the wave moves through.
• While the meteorologists at FOX 9 will try to keep you updated on more "legitimate" chances to see the northern lights, we are not experts on the subject. You can get a forecast from the experts at the Space Weather Prediction Center here or with an off-branch of NOAA at spaceweather.com