Categories: News, Schenectady County

Sunday night should be a good time to watch for the Northern Lights in Upstate New York.

A solar flare erupted on the sun Friday morning, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Space Weather Prediction Center has issued a moderate Geomagnetic Storm Watch for Sunday night and Monday morning.

Area of solar activity (sunspots) we posted on earlier this week emitted a strong solar flare last night. Minor radio impacts Asia/Pacific. pic.twitter.com/H3QwGArCHw — NWS Eastern Region (@NWSEastern) July 14, 2017

The National Weather Service has issued a watch for moderate geometric storm conditions Sunday night because of a coronal mass ejection, a large cloud of plasma and magnetic field that erupted from the sun early Friday morning. It should move past the Earth this weekend.

While solar flares are, in general, routine and frequent, they do not have much of an impact on Earth, other than triggering the Northern Lights.

The aurora borealis should be visible almost as far south as the yellow line on this map Sunday night. (NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center)

The best time to see the lights is typically between midnight and 2 a.m. though it’s OK to take a peek at the northern horizon anytime it’s dark.

Sunday night’s weather forecast says it’ll be partly cloudy with a 10 percent chance of rain.

Includes wire reports from David Rasbach of the Bellingham Herald and Annette Cary of the Tri-City Herald.