• We could see the Northern Lights in the Poconos tonight

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  • There's a chance we'll see the Northern Lights in the Poconos tonight, according to Accuweather and the National Weather Service.
    A solar flare that occurred around 2 a.m. Thursday morning may create a spectacular display of northern lights tonight. The midlevel flare had a long duration and was directed at Earth.
    On the Kp index, the flare has been categorized at 6 to 8. This is a scale for measuring the intensity of a a geomagnetic storm. The 6 to 8 rating means that the effects of the radiation will have a greater reach.
    The flare is also expected to cause vibrant northern lights from the Arctic as far south as New York, the Dakotas, Washington and Michigan, with a smaller possibility of it going into Pennsylvania and Iowa, even Kansas.
    The lights are currently estimated for 8 p.m. Saturday arrival, with a possible deviation of up to seven hours. If the radiation hits much after dark settles on the East Coast the lights may be missed and will instead only be visible for the West.
    If you see the Northern Lights, upload photos at www.poconorecord.com/submitaphoto.
    Most of the country will have poor to fair views as a result of cloud cover, with areas further south not experiencing the aurora at all.
    Solar flares create auroras when radiation from the sun reaches Earth and interacts with charged protons in our atmosphere.
    The effects are greater at the magnetic poles and weaken as they move south from the Arctic or north of the Antarctic.
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