Weather In-Depth: A spectacle in the sky this weekend

Well, the sun continues to set earlier and earlier. Although that means the evening commute mainly occurs when the sun is down, this opens the door for us to see things in the sky at night, and we will have an opportunity to see something really cool this weekend. A massive coronal mass ejection is headed towards Earth and could arrive Saturday night and bring the Northern Lights down to us!

Typically, we see the measurements of these solar storms in “Kp” indexes. Kp is a measure of geomagnetic activity in Earth’s atmosphere, or a measurement of how strong a solar storm is. For us here in Rochester, we usually need a Kp index of 6 or 7 to see the Northern Lights, and as of Friday morning the forecast for Saturday night stands at Kp=6. So this means we will have a chance to see the Northern Lights Saturday Night, but solar storms are very hard to directly forecast until the event occurs.

With that said, make sure you check back for updates as the skies should be clearing out Saturday evening, giving us a chance if the solar storm is strong enough.