Fireworks won’t be the only thing lighting up the sky during New Year celebrations.
A geomagnetic storm could make the northern lights visible across the northern fringe of the United States as early as the sunrise, or after nightfall, on New Year’s Eve, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Another geomagnetic storm could make the lights visible again after sundown on New Year’s Day.
NOAA experts won’t know exactly when the phenomena can be seen or how powerful they will be until the solar material and the magnetic fields that cause the lights get within one million miles from Earth, or 30 to 60 minutes away, said Shawn Dahl, a senior space weather forecaster for NOAA.
Here’s what you need to know.
What are the northern lights?
The northern lights, or aurora borealis, are flashes of color that appear in the night sky. They’re usually seen in the northernmost regions of the planet.
Before the northern lights become visible, explosions on the sun’s surface, known as coronal mass ejections, send streams of energy particles into space. Some of those energy particles cross Earth’s orbit and cause a disturbance in our planet’s magnetic field, known as a geomagnetic storm.
If the storm is strong, the northern lights become visible.
The sun’s magnetic fields flip on an 11-year cycle, the peak of which is known as the solar maximum. Scientists have said that the sun is in its maximum period now. During this phase, coronal mass ejections are stronger and more frequent, and the aurora is visible farther south than usual.
This is the third time the northern lights could be visible in U.S. skies in recent months.
In May, a powerful solar storm gave the Northern Hemisphere a show. The northern lights could be seen in places where the aurora rarely flashes its bright colors, including the American Midwest, the United Kingdom and other parts of Western Europe. A second powerful geomagnetic storm in October gave people as far south as New York City a rare look at a bright pink aurora.
This week, the solar activity is expected to be less powerful and visible in fewer places, though perhaps just as dazzling to those in the northern United States.
Whether the sun has peaked in the maximum phase of its cycle is not known, so parts of the globe may see more of the northern lights in 2025.
Here’s where to see the show.
The aurora this week will likely be visible in parts of Washington, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.
Northern Oregon, the lower Midwest and central New England could also get a glimpse, Mr. Dahl said.
To properly see the colors, Mr. Dahl recommends going to an area with little light pollution, away from city lights. Sometimes the aurora is not visible to the naked eye but can be captured using a phone camera.
The moon is nearly in its new moon phase, which means it shouldn’t prevent onlookers from seeing the colors.
Those waiting to see the lights can track their arrival on the website of NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center.
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