The Aurora Borealis lights up the night sky over Monroe, Wisconsin, on November 11, 2025, during one of the strongest solar storms in decades. The geomagnetic event pushes the northern lights deep into the continental United States, with vibrant pink …
DETROIT (FOX 2) - As a powerful geomagnetic storm reaches earth, the northern lights are expected to be visible across most of the United States again on Wednesday night into Thursday morning, particularly here in Michigan.
According to the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center, there's a chance of seeing the Northern Lights statewide Wednesday into Thursday.
Currently, geomagnetic storm conditions are strong, and are expected to reach severe later in the day. This increases the likelihood of the Northern Lights being visible.
How to stream the Northern Lights
FOX 2 is streaming three different angles all night long of the Northern Lights as we watch it from across Lake Michigan. Watch Wednesday night starting at 8 p.m. in the player below.
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Northern Lights cloud forecast
What we know:
Clouds during the day Wednesday are expected to lift later in the day. Overnight, skies will be partly cloudy to mainly clear, paving the way for a good chance of seeing the Aurora.
During this week's northern lights show, Wednesday night is going to be our best shot at seeing northern lights as we are expected to see a G4 category geomagnetic storm.
After Wednesday, it gets less and less likely to see the northern lights this week.
What they're saying:
On Tuesday night, the northern lights were visible across much of the Lower 48, and social media lit up with people sharing breathtaking pictures of the celestial show lighting up the sky lit up in different shades of green, purple and red; a stark contrast to the colors that we see at sunrise and sunset.
"A lot of it has to do with the light and the spectrum and the refraction of the light. In this case, you're talking more about those electrons that are coming off of the sun's surface, big solar flares that erupt," said FOX Weather Meteorologist Craig Herrera. "They make it to the Earth's atmosphere, and then they interact with either nitrogen or the oxygen to give us the colors."
What we don't know:
Just because they are forecasted to be seen doesn't guarantee that we will see them.
(NOAA SWPC)
How to see the Northern Lights
Head to a dark area and look up. That's it!
In Michigan, the more north you travel, the darker it tends to be. Check this light pollution map to find darker areas.
The aurora is often most visible around midnight. When the time to see the lights is near, use this 30-minute aurora forecast to see where it is.
Another great trick is to look at the sky through your phone. Open your camera app and look through the screen. You can also take a photo in night mode for an even better view of the lights.
What are Northern Lights?
Northern Lights, scientific term aurora borealis, are caused by the sun's intense magnetic energy. The sun, the big flaming ball of gas that provides us heat and energy, erupts in 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.
The Source: Information for this article was taken from the NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center website and reporting by Accuweather, Space.com, and FOX Weather. Previous reporting by FOX Local also contributed to this report. This story was reported from Orlando and San Jose.