Wow! What a sight to see last night, especially around 7:00-7:40 PM, when a burst of the Northern Lights was clearly visible in southern New England. An abundance of charged particles emitted from the sun, rushing toward Earth with the solar wind and interacting with our magnetosphere, created the geomagnetic storm to calm. The interaction with these charged particles and the ‘excitement’ of the oxygen and nitrogen in our atmosphere created the vibrant colors we saw.

On a scale of 1-5, the G-Scale was a 4. On the Kp index scale of 0-9, it approached 8.7 last night! Normally our chance of seeing the Northern Lights is about 7+, so almost 9 is something else! Luckily we also had clear skies for it.

Tonight the Kp index is again at 5, so the chance of seeing the Northern Lights again is a lot smaller.

The clear skies that allowed for the amazing view of the Northern Lights also made for a cold night as radiant cooling took over. For many today we’ll start out in the 30s, with even a bit of frost in a few of the colder cities. We are warming up quickly today though, back into the 60s this afternoon.

Sunshine wins today and tomorrow and tomorrow we’ll bump the numbers to near 70. That said, it will be quite breezy, with gusts of 40-55 km/h. Colder air will move in Saturday night.

It will be cooler on Sunday, with clouds in the 50s and a few showers possible. More rain is possible Sunday evening and Monday morning.

Tuesday – Thursday of next week looks chilly with some mountain snow on high ground in the evening in the higher terrain of Northern New England and Northern NY!