Check your possibilities of seeing the Auroras in the next 3 days, with our hourly and. You can see the estimated Kp levels here. Norway is one of the best places to experience the Northern Lights. For viewers in the Door County area to have a high likelihood of seeing the Northern Lights, the Kp index would need to be higher than 5 or 6.

The higher the Kp index, the more likely that aurora is visible. Where can I see the Northern Lights The aurora borealis is most commonly seen in the Polar Regions, within a radius of 2,500 km around the magnetic poles. The word 'aurora' comes from the Latin word for 'sunrise,' and 'borealis' means 'to the north.' The Aurora Borealis shines sporadically over the middle and high latitudes. There is a simple index called Kp, a number from 0 to 9, which is used to refer to geomagnetic activity for a 3-hour period. The Aurora Borealis, more commonly known as the northern lights, are radiant shimmering colors that sporadically light up the night sky and have fascinated mankind for ages. In order to know whether you have a chance of seeing an aurora, you need to know the level of geomagnetic activity at the time you are viewing.

In larger cities with light pollution, they are not visible, but in areas of the country where cities are distant, the lights can be spotted during times of high cosmic activity and when the sky is dark and cloudless. They are magical to behold and are a rare sighting in the US. They put out a forecast track of CMEs (Coronal Mass Ejections).Īnother NOAA site, has all the graphs including ACE real time solar wind for the bz component model.Called the aurora borealis or “northern lights,” the eerie and enchanting ribbons of light in the night sky are a result of the collision of charged particles from the Sun and the Earth’s magnetic field. The Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights occur with a strong solar event sending an elevated solar wind of charged particles (electrons) towards Earth. Weather permitting, northern lights displays could be visible directly overhead in some northern. Lots of graphs and details and everything explained! Aurora borealis activity is currently moderately low. Lots of info on this page, just click around! They have dazzled people for thousands of years and intrigued. The Churchill Northern Studies Centre located in Churchill, Manitoba is one of the best spots on the planet to view the northern lights (aurora borealis). Good overall site to learn about spaceweather- you can subscribe to aurora alerts here. The Northern Lights, also known as the Aurora Borealis, are an astronomical natural phenomenon consisting of displays of lights across the earths night sky. The northern lights (aurora borealis) are one of the greatest natural wonders of our world. Headlands International Dark Sky Park Clear Sky Chart Learn more about the Northern Lights phenomenon at the following links: Also note that aurora are usually most active after midnight, and you’ll do best if you start out by looking north. And they are elusive, which means they can also occur without any warning! We have included here some great sites that you can research in order to help you in your hunt for aurora, and please note that we love it when you share pictures of what you’ve found in the night sky you can email them to us at or message them to us through the Headlands Facebook page.

This solar wind puts a pressure on Earth’s magnetic field, which is not uniform, and when we come ’round to the times of Equinox every Spring and Fall, it seems the most vulnerable part of our magnetic field is exposed to the pressure of solar wind, and an increase in aurora is the result!Īurora predictions usually come only a day or two in advance of their occurrence, so please note that it is difficult to plan ahead if you are traveling from a great distance. When solar activity increases, the northern lights can also be seen further south in Norway. The lights will usually be visible over mainland Northern Norway during the night and over Svalbard during the daytime. The Northern Lights are a spectacular phenomenon that are hard to predict, and hard to forget! Their occurrence is tied to the activity of the Sun, and the solar wind caused by the eruption of spots on the Sun’s surface. The northern light appears in a belt, or an oval, which is situated above the Earth in a regular position in relation to the sun. The Northern Lights are caused by the interaction of the solar wind - a stream of charged particles escaping the Sun - and our planet's magnetic field and atmosphere. While we watched the wonder of waving color from the Headlands shoreline Labor Day weekend 2016, Jason Gillman was two miles east, catching the aurora as it draped itself beautifully over the shoulders of the Mackinac Bridge.