Whoa! What a sight to see last night, especially around 7:00-7:40pmish as a burst of the northern lights were very visible across southern New England. A plethora of charged particles, sent out by the sun, racing toward Earth with the solar wind, and interacting with our magnetosphere, created quiet the geomagnetic storm. The interaction with these charged particles and the “excitement” of the oxygen and nitrogen in our atmosphere created the vivid colors that we saw.
On a scale from 1-5, the G-Scale was a 4. On the Kp index scale from 0-9, it neared 8.7 last evening! Typically, our chance for seeing the northern lights is around 7+, so nearing 9 is something else! Fortunately we had clear skies for it too.
Tonight, the Kp index is back to a 5, so the chances to see the northern lights again are a lot lower.
The clear skies that allowed for the great viewing of the northern lights also allowed for a chilly overnight as radiational cooling won out. We start today in the 30s for many, with even a bit of patchy frost in a few of the colder towns. We warm up quickly today though, back into the 60s this afternoon.
Sunshine wins out today and tomorrow and we’ll push the numbers up to near 70 tomorrow. With that said, it’ll be quite breezy, with gusts 25-35mph. Chillier air settles in Saturday night.
Sunday will be cooler, in the 50s as clouds advance in and a few showers are possible. More widespread rain is possible Sunday evening-Monday morning.
Tuesday – Thursday of next week looks chilly with evening some high terrain upslope snow in the higher terrain of northern New England and northern NY!
