Northern Lights May Be Visible Across Parts of NY This Weekend

Newsweek is reporting that there's a possibility that the Aurora Borealis, or "Northern Lights", will be seen as far south as parts of New York state this weekend. The Space Weather Prediction Center at NOAA reports that a moderate geomagnetic solar storm is expected to reach Earth by 12 p.m. UTC (around 4 p.m. Eastern Time) Saturday.

Aurora-Service describes the phenomenon as the glowing lights in the sky, which are usually confined to the higher latitudes, caused by electrically charged particles from the Sun crashing into Earth’s upper atmosphere.

Earth's magnetic field blocks most of the participles back out into space, but there's some that reach our atmosphere, especially with stronger solar storms.

While central and northern New York state have the best shot at the seeing the lights, there is a chance we could see them as far south as the Hudson Valley Saturday night. Hudson Valley Weather is calling for partly cloudy skies Saturday night, which should provide pretty good viewing weather if they reach this far downstate.

Just make sure you're not too close to too many city lights and look north after dark.

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