Blizzard warnings in Northwest Minnesota, winter weather advisories across the state

MPR News helps you turn down the noise and build shared understanding. Turn up your support for this public resource and keep trusted journalism accessible to all. 

Turn Up Your Support

Sky watchers will be on the lookout for northern lights overnight. The sun is blasting out a series of Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) that could hit the earth’s atmosphere in the coming days. 

. That means conditions are potentially favorable for northern lights across much of the northern U.S. overnight into the wee small hours of Thursday morning. 

The aurora watch highlights the potential for weak G1 to strong G3 storm activity. If that G3 magnitude occurs, it could drive the geographic extent of the auroral oval as far south as Iowa overnight. 

NOAA’s K index spiked to 6 late Wednesday. The Kp-index depicts the disturbance level of Earth's magnetic field caused by the solar wind. The faster the solar wind blows, the greater the turbulence. The index ranges from 0, for low activity, to 9, for intense geomagnetic storms.

There will be a fair amount of cloud cover across Minnesota overnight. But there will be breaks in the cloud layers at times. Overall southern Minnesota is likely to have the fewest clouds and best potential aurora viewing. 

NOAA’s NAM 3 km resolution model shows a patchwork of clouds with some breaks in the overcast tonight. 

 shows about 50% cloud cover around the greater Twin Cities area in the hours after dusk tonight, with higher coverage later overnight. 

So if you are fortunate enough to get some break in the clouds overnight, keep an eye out for possible northern lights show overnight into Thursday morning. As always the best viewing is away from city lights with dark skies to the north.

Weather and Climate News

Updraft® - Minnesota Weather News

Paul Huttner

Author

A strong solar storm could trigger northern lights overnight.

Aurora Watch: Find your sky cover and aurora forecast here

Go Deeper.

Like this?