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Northern Lights could return to Western Washington this week

There will be strong solar wind – a stream of energy – from the sun headed toward Earth around mid-week.

It’s too early for any specifics, but if Earth is aligned properly with this stream of charged particles, we could see the Northern Lights in parts of Western Washington Tuesday night through possibly Thursday night.

Right now, this doesn’t look like a major solar storm, so the aurora might well just be visible across far northern sections of our region, well away from city lights. Still, the Alaska Geophysical Institute is presently predicting a maximum K-index of 6 Wednesday and Thursday. That level of auroral activity could bring visibility of the Northern Lights farther south in our region.

A possible complication will be cloud cover at times, especially Wednesday night.

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