{"id":11301,"date":"2025-08-20T09:54:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T09:54:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/11301\/"},"modified":"2025-08-20T09:54:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T09:54:07","slug":"where-can-you-see-the-northern-lights-tonight-see-list-of-states","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/11301\/","title":{"rendered":"Where can you see the northern lights tonight? See list of states."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;right:0;bottom:0;width:100%;height:100%;z-index:2\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/84000293007-nothern-lights-across-us.jpg\"\/><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vidplayicon\" src=\"https:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/appservices\/universal-web\/universal\/icons\/icon-play-alt-white.svg\" alt=\"play\" style=\"height:40px;margin:auto 18px auto 27px;width:40px\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Watch as a vibrant aurora dances across the night sky<\/p>\n<p>About 20 U.S. states caught a glimpse of the northern lights, according to NOAA.<\/p>\n<p>At least a half-dozen states could see the illuminating northern lights on Tuesday night, Aug. 19, forecasters predict.<\/p>\n<p>Formally known as the aurora borealis, the colorful night skies are caused by the interaction between Earth\u2019s magnetic field and the sun\u2019s plasma, according to the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.weather.gov\/fsd\/aurora\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">National Weather Service<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.swpc.noaa.gov\/communities\/aurora-dashboard-experimental\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">researchers report<\/a> the celestial glow should be\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.weather.gov\/fsd\/aurora\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">visible through Wednesday, Aug. 20<\/a> across multiple northern states.<\/p>\n<p>What states will see the northern lights tonight?<\/p>\n<p>NOAA&#8217;s Space Weather Prediction Center&#8217;s view line shows the following states might catch a glimpse of the aurora on Tuesday, Aug. 19.<\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Washington<\/li>\n<li>Idaho<\/li>\n<li>Montana<\/li>\n<li>North Dakota<\/li>\n<li>Wisconsin<\/li>\n<li>Minnesota<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Depending on cloud cover, Michigan could see a slight chance of the aurora, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.freep.com\/story\/news\/local\/michigan\/2025\/08\/19\/north-lights-upper-peninsula-aug19-visibility\/85721094007\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.freep.com\/story\/news\/local\/michigan\/2025\/08\/19\/north-lights-upper-peninsula-aug19-visibility\/85721094007\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">the Detroit Free-Press<\/a>, part of the USA TODAY Network reported.<\/p>\n<p>What is the K-index?<\/p>\n<p>According to the agency, NOAA is predicting a geomagnetic\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.swpc.noaa.gov\/content\/tips-viewing-aurora\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">K-index<\/a>\u00a0of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.swpc.noaa.gov\/communities\/aurora-dashboard-experimental\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">3.<\/a> The index,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.swpc.noaa.gov\/noaa-scales-explanation\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">according to NOAA<\/a>, indicates how far away from the poles the northern lights might be visible.<\/p>\n<p>The K-index (also called Kp) stands for \u201cPlanetary Index\u201d and is an indicator of disturbances in the Earth\u2019s magnetic field. It\u00a0ranges from 0 to 9, according to NOAA, and a Kp score between 3 and 5 indicates brighter activity.<\/p>\n<p>Natalie Neysa Alund is a senior reporter for USA TODAY. Reach her at nalund@usatoday.com and follow her on X @nataliealund.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Watch as a vibrant aurora dances across the night sky About 20 U.S. states caught a glimpse of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11302,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[270],"tags":[582,9126,9132,9124,6958,9125,1430,1437,10941,1433,1439,18,8242,19,17,711,6878,1216,1231,10943,1218,1232,1221,10939,10940,10945,5707,10946,10938,713,1234,1215,1431,133,451,1217,1214,1213,1230,835,10944,2709,443,1432,1438,10942],"class_list":["post-11301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-astronomy","tag-atmospheric","tag-atmospheric-science","tag-aurora","tag-aurora-borealis","tag-borealis","tag-central","tag-central-region","tag-dakota","tag-east","tag-east-region","tag-eire","tag-idaho","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-michigan","tag-minnesota","tag-modular","tag-modular-story","tag-montana","tag-network","tag-network-trending","tag-neutral","tag-noaa","tag-north","tag-north-dakota","tag-now","tag-now-universal","tag-nws","tag-overall","tag-overall-neutral","tag-point","tag-region","tag-science","tag-space","tag-story","tag-the","tag-to","tag-to-the-point","tag-trending","tag-universal","tag-washington","tag-weather","tag-west","tag-west-region","tag-wisconsin"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11301\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}