Incredible opportunity to see the northern lights tonight across ALL of Minnesota and Wisconsin

Viewing the northern lights tonight will be easier for the Upper Midwest at large than it has in decades. A strong geomagnetic storm is resulting from the sun’s ejection of multiple strong solar flares (electromagnetic radiation hurled into space, weighing billions of tons per flare), resulting in solar energy racing towards Earth at the speed of light. This radiation interacts with the outermost part of our atmosphere, bombarding atomic matter and increasing the energy state to which these particles radiate. The increase mass of the solar flare magnetic field hitting our atmosphere also increases the density of the outermost part of our atmosphere (which is typically thin..molecules spread far apart). The additional mass can cause issues with radio signal and electronics. Since we have multiple strong solar flares, the severity of this geomagnetic storm is higher than we’ve seen since 2003. This means more of the country, even well south of the Midwest, could see the northern lights tonight.

Get outside tonight, this chance doesn’t come around very often!

Wren