It's (almost) springtime in Alaska, and that means the air is getting warmer and the days are getting longer. While most Alaskans embrace the arrival of our brief window of warmer weather, it also has a downside. As daylight increases, the chances of seeing the northern lights diminish. This is especially a disappointment in a year when the sun approaches its maximum level of activity on an 11-year cycle -- who knows what dazzling nighttime light shows we're missing out on while the "Land of the Midnight Sun" lives up to its name?

Thankfully, Alaskans may be able to get potentially their last best chance at seeing the northern lights this weekend, thanks to a cloud of magnetically charged particles that erupted from the sun in the early morning hours Friday, bound almost directly for Earth. As this Coronal Mass Ejection (CME), as it's called, arrives at the home planet and begins to tickle the atmosphere, it will create geomagnetic storms that lead to aurora.

The strength and direction of this particular CME could mean one of the best displays so far this year, in what's ultimately been a pretty mediocre aurora-viewing season given how close the sun is to its solar maximum. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) in Colorado, the northern lights could reach all the way to the northern U.S. on Saturday night, including Iowa and New York.

Adding to the CME's aurora-brewing potential is the speed at which it's flying toward Earth. According to NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, the CME launched from the sun at about 900 miles per second, "which is a fairly fast speed for CMEs."

The SWPC predicts that Saturday night could bring "unsettled to major storm levels" on Saturday night. The activity is expected to peak between 1 p.m. and 1 a.m. Alaska time, so Alaskans across the state stand a particularly good chance at spotting a bit of activity in the early part of the night. The University of Alaska Fairbanks' Geophysical Institute is predicting only "moderate" activity, but even that should be visible on the horizon as far south as Anchorage and Juneau.

The lights were out on Friday night and Saturday morning as well, ramping up toward Saturday's expected display. A YouTube user posted a time-lapse video of some impressive auroral activity in the wee hours of March 16 in the area near North Pole, in Alaska's Interior.

As for whether or not you'll be able to see them on Saturday, you'll have to check out the weather in your neck of the woods in order to see if the skies in your area will be clear. Much of the state is expected to be partly to moderately cloudy -- including the areas around Juneau, Fairbanks, Nome and Anchorage -- though others might have even better conditions.

It's worth a shot though, right? So get out and go aurora hunting this weekend -- at worst, you pack a thermos, dress warm, and spend some time stargazing with the people closest to you. And as always, if you do manage to get some documentation that you've seen the elusive northern lights, don't forget to share them with us at info(at)alaskadispatch.com to be added to our ever-growing reader-submitted slideshow.