The region of the sun that produced the strong activity responsible for stunning aurora sights earlier this month has rotated back around toward Earth. So, does that mean more parts of the U.S.
could once again be treated to northern lights? Both the answer — and the conditions — are a little murky. Region 3664 was responsible for that outburst of nighttime beauty. It’s now known as region 3697 (the numerical designation changes when the sun goes through a rotation).
“However, the region has significantly decayed since it was facing Earth in early May,” Shawn Dahl, a space weather forecaster at NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) in Boulder, Colo., told NPR via email. As for the current conditions, moderate geomagnetic storm levels are possible from May 31 to June 1, according to the latest forecast from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center.
On a scale that runs up to G5 (for “extreme”), the agency predicts storm strength around G2, a level that normally brings only small disruptions to systems on Earth. At the G2 level, an aurora can sometimes be seen as far south as New York and Idaho. Auroras that light up the night sky come from geomagnetic storms — which can result from solar activity such as a coronal mass ejection (or CME) erupting from the sun and sending plasma racing toward Earth.
“A CME associated with the X1.4 flare, produced by Region 3697 earlier in the period, is likely to enhance the .
