Overview
- NOAA’s latest view line favors visibility in border states, including parts of Washington, Idaho, Montana and South Dakota, all of North Dakota, most of Minnesota, northern Wisconsin and northern Michigan, northern Maine and much of Alaska.
- The best viewing window typically runs from about 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. local time, when auroral activity most often peaks.
- A fast solar wind from a coronal hole remains the primary driver, though the newest outlook scales back from earlier G1–G2 storm expectations reported overnight.
- New-moon conditions on January 18 provide darker skies that can make faint displays easier to detect, especially low on the northern horizon.
- NOAA’s 30-minute aurora forecast and tools like SpaceWeatherLive and popular aurora apps can help track short-term changes that determine where and when the lights appear.