Northern Lights are likely TONIGHT!

Aurora Borealis … over ‘the Narrows’ by Ken Scott

via the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center:

CME on the way…Want to see the Northern Lights?

We have completed initial analysis of the CME associated with today’s X1 (NOAA Scale – R3) solar flare from Region 1944 (center disk) and have developed a forecast for a geoeffective event. Despite the CME not coming directly at Earth, a partial impact to the magnetic field that protects Earth is expected and a resulting geomagnetic storm as high as G3 (strong) levels is forecast to begin early to midday (UTC) on Thursday, 9 January (just after midnight to early morning hours EST).

It looks like we will have clearing late so you might want to set a 5 AM alarm! They also say that Friday night there’s a chance of aurora if we get clouded out! More aurora info at Space Weather.

You can view Ken’s photo bigger on Flickr and also check out an awesome time lapse from the October 2013 Northern Lights below!