CLOSE Some northern parts of the country might see ripples of color in the sky for a few days. Video provided by Newsy Newslook 
 
 The Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights illuminate the night sky on August 23, 2016, in Sweden. The sky spectacle could pay a visit to the U.S. on Sunday night, July 16, 2017. (Photo: JONATHAN NACKSTRAND, AFP/Getty Images) 
 
 Thanks to a geomagnetic storm from the sun, skywatchers across most of Canada and the northern U.S. should get a special treat Sunday night into Monday morning: A visit from the aurora borealis, aka the Northern Lights. 
 
 The sky spectacle should be visible in states such as Montana, the Dakotas, Minnesota, Wisconsin, northern Illinois, Michigan, northern New York State and much of New England, according to NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center. 
 
 Folks in cities such as Minneapolis, Chicago, Detroit, Buffalo, Syracuse, Albany and Boston all have a fair chance of seeing the aurora. 
 
 Area of solar activity (sunspots) we posted on earlier this week emitted a strong solar flare last night. Minor radio impacts Asia/Pacific. pic.twitter.com/H3QwGArCHw — NWS Eastern Region (@NWSEastern) July 14, 2017 
 
 The event is courtesy of a solar flare, which erupted out of a sunspot late Thursday into early Friday. The flare blasted out X-rays, which caused a minor radio blackout over parts of Asia, the Weather Network reported. 
 
 The flare also released a wave of charged particles, known as a coronal mass ejection, which take a couple of days to reach Earth. 
 
 Charged particles (coronal mass ejection) from the solar flare will reach the earth Sun. Auroras possible Sun night New England-Great Lakes pic.twitter.com/Nq03C2gFN8 — NWS Eastern Region (@NWSEastern) July 14, 2017 
 
 The aurora forms when those particles flowing from the sun get caught up in the Earth's magnetic field. The particles interact with molecules of atmospheric gases to cause the famed glowing red and green colors of the aurora. 
 
 The lights are visible in both the far northern and southern parts of the world. The southern lights are known as aurora australis. 
 
 NOAA has issued a geomagnetic storm watch for the event and expects a "moderate" storm, a 2 out of 5 on its severity scale. 
 
 Sunday night, the aurora borealis should be visible almost as far south as the yellow line on this map. (Photo: NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center) 
 
 Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2v10lqK ||||| The green, shimmering northern lights could appear in U.S. skies Thursday and Friday morning, though space weather experts can't say for certain. 
 
 A solar flare erupted from the sun's surface Jan. 7. It expelled a cloud of gas that will intersect with the Earth's atmosphere Jan. 9 and 10, possibly causing the appearance of the aurora borealis. (Photo: Solar & Heliospheric Observatory, NASA) Story Highlights The northern lights may be visible in parts of the USA 
 
 They'll be caused by a giant cloud of solar particles, which erupted from the sun 
 
 Also called the aurora borealis, the spectacle appears as shimmering lines and waves of light 
 
 The polar vortex may be gone, but another extreme event is coming. Space weather experts say northern states may be able to see the aurora borealis, or northern lights, Thursday and Friday morning. 
 
 "We're hoping," said Joe Kunches with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colo. "The sun has done its part, it produced a fast, energetic eruption about the middle of the day Tuesday." 
 
 That eruption blew off a piece of the solar atmosphere that is winging its way toward Earth, said Jeffrey Newmark, a solar physicist with NASA. It will take about two days to reach us. 
 
 The northern lights appear when atoms in the Earth's high-altitude atmosphere collide with energetic charged particles from the sun. They usually appear as shimmering green waves of light in the nighttime sky in polar latitudes. Much more rarely, they can be red and even blue. 
 
 A solar storm is when "the (sun's) magnetic field gets twisted up in a high-energy state and it relaxes, and that releases a tremendous amount of energy," Newmark said. 
 
 First there is a solar flare, a release of light and high-energy particles. The light reaches the Earth in eight minutes, the high-energy particles about an hour later, Newmark said. 
 
 At the same time, there is a "coronal mass ejection," sometimes called a solar storm. It contains billions of tons of energetic hydrogen and helium ions as well as protons and electrons ejected from the sun's surface. 
 
 Predicting exactly when the energy will arrive is difficult. 
 
 NASA's Advanced Composition Explorer satellite sits about 1 million miles away from the Earth, picking up readings of solar bombardments. Even at that distance, "as the wave passes the satellite, we have only half an hour's warnings before it gets here," Kunches said. 
 
 It takes the Earth up to 36 hours to pass through the cloud, so it is possible there may be lights Wednesday night going into Thursday morning, said Mark Paquette with AccuWeather in State College, Pa. The clearest skies and best viewing will be in the Northeast and the Great Lakes region, he said. 
 
 It's more likely the lights, should they appear, will be visible Thursday night going into Friday morning, he said. 
 
 The energetic particles can affect spacecraft, communication and power grids, GPS satellites and even planes flying near the poles. 
 
 
 
 Because aircraft can't be guaranteed undisturbed communication as they fly at high altitudes, air-traffic control might push them down a little more toward the equator, Kunches said. 
 
 Astronauts at the International Space Station "will be told to stay indoors," Newmark said. 
 
 These kinds of solar storms are a normal part of the sun's activity. They ebb and flow on a roughly 11-year cycle, Newmark said. This is a moderate one, and the flare came from a region of the sun's surface directly facing the Earth. 
 
 "In July of 2012, there was a much larger event, but it was on the back side of the sun facing away from us, so we barely felt it," he said. 
 
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– Look up into the skies Sunday night and you might just get to see the aurora borealis, otherwise known as the Northern Lights. Scientists at the NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center say that aurora lights, which are usually only seen in the extreme north and south of the globe, should be visible over much of Canada and the northern United States late Sunday and early Monday, USA Today reports. That includes northern New York state, much of New England, Illinois, Wisconsin, and the Dakotas. The Weather Network, which has a map showing viewing areas, reports that the event was caused by a solar flare that exploded on the sun Thursday night. That flare released a cloud of solar particles, a process known as a coronal mass ejection. When those particles reach the Earth's atmosphere, they interact with atmospheric gases, creating the famed colors of the aurora. At the same time the flare was releasing that cloud of particles, it also emitted X-rays that caused a small radio blackout in Asia. At about 10am Eastern Standard Time Sunday, the National Weather Service announced on Twitter that "Geomagnetic storm conditions" had begun. According to its latest forecast, the best viewing will come between sunset and 2am, "clouds permitting."