Northern lights in Michigan: Aurora borealis possible Sunday night

DETROIT (FOX 2) - A powerful geomagnetic storm could mean a brilliant show in the skies of Michigan Sunday night.

According to the Space Weather Prediction Center, a powerful burst erupted from the sun Friday night, triggering a "severe" geomagnetic storm watch. 

Northern lights forecast

What we know:

The geomagnetic storm is rated G4, so it’s not as severe as the G5 storm that led to stunning displays across the southern U.S. on May 10.

That storm sent northern lights as far south as Texas on Sunday morning – and it's expected to continue later in the night on Sunday, FOX Weather reports. 

Even better news? We expect clear skies all Sunday night.

The cloud-cover forecast is favorable for much of the United States – including Michigan, where it's expected to be brightest in the Midwest.

What you can do:

Your best bet to see the northern lights is to get away from the city and light pollution. The farther north you go, the more likely it is you will see the glow on the northern horizon.

What we don't know:

There’s a chance the storm could reach level G5, which could lead to even more aurora visibility, but whether that happens remains to be seen. 

What are geomagnetic storms? 

The backstory:

The sun’s intense magnetic energy is the source of solar flares and eruptions of plasma known as coronal mass ejections. When directed toward Earth, they can create stunning auroras but also disrupt power and communications.

Galileo was among the first astronomers to turn a telescope skyward and study sunspots, back in the early 1600s. Solar flares and coronal mass ejections tend to occur near sunspots, dark patches as big as Earth that are located near the most intense portions of the sun’s shifting magnetic field.

A solar cycle is a sequence the sun’s magnetic field goes through every 11 years, when the field flips. Geomagnetic storms could become more frequent over the next year as the sun begins to move into the solar maximum phase of its 11-year cycle.