New forecast erases chances of seeing northern lights

By
Staff Report
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FILE - In this Wednesday, March 1, 2017 file photo, the Northern Lights, or aurora borealis, appear in the sky over Bifrost, Western Iceland. Police in Iceland say tourists are often putting themselves at risk searching for the Northern Lights, whose spectacular streaks of color light up the winter skies at night. Police say sleep-deprived tourists are dividing their attentions between the road and the sky, and often underestimate the challenging conditions posed by Iceland’s twisty, narrow, often-icy roads in the winter. (AP Photo/Rene Rossignaud, file)

(AP/News Now Warsaw) — An initially promising U.S. forecast for the northern lights has gone bust. The head of operations at the U.S. government’s space weather prediction center says stargazers in the continental 48 states have essentially zero chance of seeing the northern lights this week.

That’s despite an initially promising forecast. Forecasters had thought they would be viewable as far south as Illinois this week. The northern lights are also known as aurora borealis. They are an astronomical phenomenon in which curtains of color are visible against the night sky.

While there was a non-zero chance to see the colors in Kosciusko County, the new forecast erases any chances of seeing them.

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