Northern lights expected in Minnesota Thursday night as severe geomagnetic storm hits Earth

MINNEAPOLIS — Get your cameras ready, Minnesota, because a big northern lights show is expected after sundown on Thursday due to the arrival of a severe geomagnetic storm.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center says a coronal mass ejection (CME) left the sun on Wednesday at about 9 p.m. CST, traveling at about 1.5 million miles an hour. It arrived at Earth on Thursday just after 10 a.m. CST.

"This is a very speedy CME. It's the fastest CME that we've really measured that had a total-Earth component in the solar cycle so far," said space weather forecaster Shawn Dahl .

The storm's current strength is rated at G4, which means it's severe, but it has the potential of reaching G5, or extreme strength. The storm could last through Saturday.

Dahl's team says the storm "could impact ongoing recovery efforts for Hurricanes Helene and Milton" due to possible disruptions to communication satellites, high-frequency radio signals, GPS systems and power grids that have already been strained by the massive storms.

NOAA has a spacecraft located 1 million miles from Earth which alerts the prediction center when solar flares are between 15-30 minutes from reaching our planet. Nevertheless, space storm forecasting is a pretty unpredictable science .

You can watch the storm's activity in real time on the prediction center's website .

On the upside, auroras are expected to be visible on Thursday night in Minnesota and Wisconsin — if clouds cooperate — and as far south as Alabama.

Why does there seem to be more northern lights this year?

Bryan Brasher, the prediction center's project manager, says we're at the peak of Solar Cycle 25, with each cycle lasting about 11 years. He says this cycle has been much more active than predicted.

All that activity has given Minnesotans plenty of opportunities to marvel at dancing light shows in the sky, with the most recent batch of auroras visible in the Twin Cities and other parts of the state this past weekend .

This current storm could even rival the one in May, which produced incredible auroras over Minnesota , but it's unclear if it will be as strong or will last as long.

The prediction center says CMEs are "tremendous explosions of solar and embedded magnetic fields." When a CME hits and envelopes our planet's magnetic field, the collision of its electrically-charged particles with our atmosphere can produce dazzling waves of color in the sky.

Check out these tips from the pros on photographing the northern lights.