Are the northern lights over in Ohio? Geomagnetic storm pushing aurora into U.S. weakens

The northern lights put on an impressive show this past weekend, starting on Friday night and continuing through Sunday. But the geomagnetic storm that pushed the aurora borealis this far south is weakening.

Here's what that means for the aurora going forward.

When will the northern lights be visible tonight?

The spectacular northern lights on Friday night were the result of a rare, extreme geomagnetic storm, level 5 out of 5, according to the Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC). By Sunday night into Monday morning, those storms had dropped to level G3. Sunday night, the aurora had retreated to the north, but was still visible along the horizon, according to social media reports.

The SWPC forecast calls for geomagnetic conditions to wane from Monday into Tuesday, meaning the aurora might retreat further north, to its usual haunts of Alaska and northern Canada.

What causes the northern lights?

Auroras are ribbons of light weaving across Earth's northern or southern polar regions, according to NASA. They are caused by magnetic storms that have been triggered by solar activity, such as solar flares or coronal mass ejections. Energetic charged particles from these events are carried away from the Sun by the solar wind.

These energized particles hit the atmosphere at 45 million mph and are redirected to the poles by the earth's magnetic field, according to Space.com, creating the light show.

During major geomagnetic storms, they expand away from the poles and can be seen over some parts of the United States, according to the NOAA.

What is a coronal mass ejection?

NASA describes coronal mass ejections as "huge bubbles of coronal plasma threaded by intense magnetic field lines that are ejected from the Sun over the course of several hours." The Akron Beacon Journal reports that the space agency says they often look like "huge, twisted rope" and can occur with solar flares, or explosions on the sun's surface.

When was the last time the aurora borealis was in Ohio?

Before this weekend, the last really good showing of the northern lights in Ohio was in November 2001, Dean Regas writes for the Cincinnati Enquirer.

Regas recalls locking up at the Cincinnati Observatory the night of Nov. 5, 2001, and looking up to see a green sky, the color the aurora typically displays when in Ohio, he wrote in a 2021 article.

Another visible aurora occurred in October 2011, Cleveland State astronomer Jay Reynolds told Cleveland WKYC TV-3 in a 2014 article. People reported seeing it from the shores of Lake Erie, and Reynolds witnessed it from downtown Cleveland, he told the station.

Others include an aurora in January 2004 so bright it tinted the heavy cloud cover green, Reynolds told WKYC, and another in September 2003.

This article originally appeared on Record-Courier: Are the northern lights over in Ohio? Here's what we know