п»їThe Northern Lights are expected to be spectacular. Here's where to get a good view.
Still trying to decide where to vacation this year?
A destination to view Northern Lights might be optimal for 2024 — as it’s the best time to see them in decades.
The Northern Lights, known as aurora borealis, will be especially strong through 2025, according to Erica Grow Cei, a meteorologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center, USA Today reported.
“We are entering a period of expected increased activity on the sun. Some types of space weather, called coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, can cause the aurora borealis, or Northern Lights, to reach farther south and look more spectacular,” she said.
Lee Hendricks, meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Moon, said it’s entirely possible that the Northern Lights will be able to be seen in the northernmost states in America due to the peak solar cycle that’s occurring.
In Pennsylvania, the aurora borealis has been seen in Erie before, Hendricks said.
A peak solar cycle is a period of time when there’s more solar activity on the surface of the sun itself, which can interfere with communications and transmissions, as well as produce the ability to see the lights farther south than normal, according to Hendricks.
“These periods can last up to several years,” he said. “They don’t really have any expectation of how long the cycle will be — this is still very much a developing science.”
It’s called Solar Cycle 25, and it will include more sunspots, which can produce solar flares and CMEs, according to NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center.
The Northern Lights can be monitored on the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center’s Aurora Dashboard. Users can look at visuals to learn where the lights will be able to be spotted, as well as check out a three-day forecast.
For optimal viewing, the best times to travel to destinations where you can spot the lights are around the spring and fall equinoxes and in between them, when there are more hours of darkness.
The list also included destinations in the United States: Fairbanks, Alaska; Headlands International Dark Sky Park in Michigan; and Voyageurs National Park in Minnesota.
The longer the stay in a destination, the more likely you are to spot the lights, though it might be hard to distinguish them at first, USA Today said.
Tracy Therrien, owner of Bucket List Tours in Yellowknife, said it’s always better to go with a professional.
“When the aurora first comes out, most times she’s actually white in color to the naked eye, and for some people, it’s hard to distinguish the aurora from a cloud, which is why we encourage you to go with aurora guides,” she said. “They need to know in the beginning it may be just white in color, but as she gets stronger and stronger, that’s when we see the color to the naked eye, but we can always see the color through the camera.”
Megan Swift is a TribLive reporter covering trending news in Western Pennsylvania. A Murrysville native, she joined the Trib full time in 2023 after serving as editor-in-chief of The Daily Collegian at Penn State. She previously worked as a Jim Borden Scholarship intern at the Trib for three summers. She can be reached at mswift@triblive.com.
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