(CBS DETROIT) – Another show awaits us in the sky on Thursday evening, as the Northern Lights will be visible as far south as Alabama and Northern California.

If you haven’t seen the Northern Lights from your backyard lately, you have another chance as another major geomagnetic storm hits Earth.

Solar cycles last about 11 years on average, and we are approaching the peak of this cycle. This particular cycle is quite active, with at least 50 X-class eruptions in the past five years. In the past year alone, 46 of these eruptions have occurred.

Solar flare classifications start with an A-Class, the weakest classification with barely a noticeable effect on Earth. The strongest classification, and the one we are currently experiencing, is a Class X solar flare. These cause radio disruptions and long-lasting radiation storms worldwide. Within each of these classifications are levels between one and nine. The higher the number, the stronger the flare.

An X1 flare emerged from the central part of the sun on Tuesday night. This coronal mass ejection (CME) traveled towards Earth at a speed of about 4.5 million kilometers per hour. At 10:49 a.m. Thursday, the CME finally reached Earth’s DSCOVR satellite, which is 1 million miles away. Thirty minutes later it reached Earth’s atmosphere.

“So the eruption happens. It’s an explosion of a million tons of plastic gas and magnetic field being shot out of space and heading towards Earth, or at least part of it. It takes a few days to get here, said Bill Murtagh, forecaster at the Space Weather Prediction Center. “It hits the Earth’s magnetic field, the two magnetic fields coupled the magnetic field that was in that cloud, the coronal mass ejection and the Earth’s magnetic field, and those energetic particles flow toward the high latitudes, interacting with the Earth’s atmosphere and cause the beautiful light, show the Northern Lights. And of course, in the Southern Tier and the Southern Hemisphere, the Southern Lights as well. Every time we get a storm like that, people in Michigan will see the Northern Lights .

Shawn Dahl, a forecaster at the Space Weather Prediction Center, says the way CMEs affect Earth is similar to an approaching cold front. You get a strong initial shock, like that of a gust of wind, but then it takes a while before the cold temperatures set in. It will also take a while for the strongest part of the magnetic cloud to settle above Earth.

Therefore, on a scale of 1 to 5, with five being extreme, the speed of this storm has reached the “severe” level of a G4. Although we have not had any confirmed disruptions yet, we will continue to see the effects of this storm even into tomorrow, including being able to see the Northern Lights.