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Northern Lights in the Upper Peninsula October 2013

(LakeSuperiorPhoto)

The northern lights will possibly be visible tonight and Thursday night over Michigan.

Spaceweather.com is reporting that a solar flare occurred yesterday. The solar flare occurred when it was directly facing the earth. So the energy from this flare is expected to hit the earth tonight and may continue to stream energy our way for a few days.

This is a condition that creates the northern lights.

Here is a cool previous story from mlive.com about the northern lights.

Click here to see a forecast from the Geophysical Institute of how far south the northern lights may occur.

They are projecting that northern lights may be seen all the way past the southern Lower Michigan border. The farther north you are in Michigan, the greater the chance you will have of seeing an impressive light show.

Here is the forecast of cloud cover in percent at 4 a.m. Wednesday night. Cloud cover should be sparse enough to allow viewing of northern lights, if they occur.

Will the sky be clear enough?

The problem with viewing northern lights here in Michigan is cloud cover. We have a lot of clouds during the cold winter months. We have lake effect clouds now. The good news is cloud cover should generally be thinning during the day today, and we may clear out tonight. The computer model data does clear us out, but I'd use a little hesitation with this forecast. Although we should have clouds breaking up, we can always get scattered patches of clouds. In other words, I think we will have good viewing, but localized areas may miss out on the show.

What time would northern lights happen?

Space weather forecasters have a hard time forecasting exactly what time northern lights would occur. It obviously has to be dark. Midnight to 4 a.m. is usually the time when northern lights put on their show.

If the show starts we will be sure to let you know. You may want to take a nap this afternoon or evening, and plan on staying up late tonight. I've done this a lot, and often it means staring at a dark sky. Rarely it means seeing the sky show of your life.

Mark Torregrossa has been the chief meteorologist for three television news stations in Michigan. A resident of the state for 20 years, he has also gardened since the age of ten and is an avid hunter. Email him at mark@farmerweather.com and find him on Facebook at facebook.com/mark.torregrossa and Twitter @weathermanmark