With many Chicago-area residents getting a fascinating display of the Northern Lights, NBC 5 Storm Team meteorologist Kevin Jeanes explains what a geomagnetic storm is and how it causes the phenomenon.
Friday night brought spectacular views of the Northern Lights to the Chicago area and to parts of the southern United States, but after the spectacle fizzled on Saturday, could we get one more shot at seeing it?
According to the Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC), there is indeed at least a chance that the continuing geomagnetic storm could yield another night of spectacular auroras across parts of North America, including the Chicago area.
The latest guidance from the SWPC indicates that another wave of the “intense coronal mass ejections (CME’s) is expected to reach the outer atmosphere throughout the day Sunday, including into the evening hours in the Chicago area.
That could mean the Northern Lights could be visible at lower altitudes, and therefore could be seen in the Chicago area.
The issue is that the wave-like nature of the auroras makes them hard to predict.
“The chance is there. It’s very difficult to predict, but it’s possible that we see some auroras,” according to NBC 5 Storm Team Meteorologist Kevin Jeanes.
A sunspot cluster, more than 16 times the diameter of the Earth, unleashed a series of CME’s last week, leading to the issuance of a rare “severe geomagnetic storm watch” on Thursday. On Friday, the initial wave of those CME’s caused the Northern Lights to be visible as far south as Alabama and Florida, yielding spectacular views in the Chicago area that led to residents pulling out their cameras and phones to capture the rare scene.
Local
In addition to the incredible auroras, there have been reports of power grid issues, problems with high-frequency communications and GPS navigation systems because of the ongoing geomagnetic storm.
The sunspot cluster causing the storm is expected to rotate out of view of Earth by Tuesday, bringing things to an end, according to the SWPC.
Feeling out of the loop? We'll catch you up on the Chicago news you need to know. Sign up for the weekly Chicago Catch-Up newsletter.