Canadian from coast to coast and as far south as Toronto There’s a shot at seeing the Northern Lights this weekend, thanks to a series of solar flares and storms over the past few days.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Center for Space Weather Prediction, multiple aurora mass ejections (CMEs) are expected to impact Earth’s magnetic field on Thursday and Friday, culminating in aurora displays occurring on Friday and Saturday nights. The CME is the massive expulsion of solar matter from the sun’s atmosphere, the corona, into space. When the CME collides with Earth’s magnetic field, the result can sometimes be colorful auroras.
While the northern lights are usually only visible in the Arctic regions, the cumulative effects of this week’s CME as well as the fast-moving solar wind known as the annular high-velocity will do the trick. for the phenomenon to be visible to those farther south, as long as the night sky is clear.
“We anticipate these disturbances to last through Friday and through Saturday, mostly mild to moderate,” NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center wrote in a weather update. space weather on August 18. “This will keep the aurora active but at a higher latitude than yesterday.”
In the meantime, here’s a taste of what people around the world have seen thanks to this week’s solar storms.
