Can you see the northern lights in California? Light show expected to peak in 2024

For many star-gazing fans in California, catching a glimpse of northern lights in person seems like a dream.

However, that could change this year.

In December, scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted peak solar activity in January and October of 2024, which could result in more dramatic light displays in the skies above California.

The phenomenon, which occurs predominately in high-latitude regions, is known as the northern lights, or, aurora borealis, in Earth’s northern hemisphere and the southern lights, or aurora australis, in the southern hemisphere.

“It is very rare for the northern lights to be visible from Sacramento, but it’s not impossible,” said Kyle Watters, a professor of physics and astronomy at Sacramento State.

How do the northern lights happen?

Auroras are caused by the activity of the sun.

“Our sun is constantly spewing out high energy particles out into space,” said Watters, who is also Sacramento State’s planetarium coordinator. “Those particles honestly would be fairly hazardous to us as human beings, but luckily for us, Earth has a magnetic field.”

This field traps those charged particles, he said, and funnels them either towards the north or south pole.

According to NOAA, the sun’s particles collide with oxygen and nitrogen atoms in the Earth’s atmosphere.

“What ends up happening is those trapped charged particles put on a really pretty light show,” Watters said.

Typically, aurora borealis will form about 80 to 500 km above the Earth’s surface, NOAA said on its website — that’s about 50 to 311 miles.

Experts: 2024 could be good year to see aurora borealis

Experts are predicting that this year could be a good year for northern lights due to the predicted solar activity.

The sun doesn’t always have the same level of activity, Watters said.

“It actually kind of goes up and down, and up and down on a roughly 11-year cycle,” he said.

This year, he said, the sun is headed into peak activity, so there will be more solar storms, solar flare and more particles from the sun flying off into space — resulting in “more northern lights here on planet Earth.”

According to NOAA’s December prediction, the sun’s current cycle, called Solar Cycle 25, is expected to have solar activity that will increase quicker and peak at a higher level than previously predicted in 2019.

In 2019, NOAA said, scientists thought the cycle would peak with 95 to 130 sunspots from 2023 to 2026.

“The updated prediction now calls for Solar Cycle 25 to peak between January and October of 2024, with a maximum sunspot number between 137 and 173,” the agency said.

Sunspots tend to be the source of solar storms, Watters said.

“The more sunspots there are, the more likely that we’re going to have solar activity sometime soon,” he said.

However, it’s still hard to be sure what will happen.

Watters said there’s no way of knowing if a sunspot will have a solar flare soon or at all. While there are observatories and satellites, there aren’t devices on the sun that can make direct measurements.

“It’s very much kind of a watch-and-wait type of situation,” he said.

Are the northern lights rare? Where do you see them?

According to the University of Alaska in Fairbanks, there are always some auroras taking place at various places on Earth.

“When the solar wind is calm, the aurora might only be occurring at very high latitudes and might be faint, but there is still (an) aurora,” the school said on its website.

It added that the best places to see northern lights are in the high northern latitudes in the winter in Alaska, Canada and Scandinavia.

The sky needs to be dark and clear for optimal viewing.

“It really is as simple as, the farther north you go, the better your chances are,’” Watters said.

Auroras are a lot more rare in the continental United States, he said, as the sun needs more activity for the lights to be spotted down south.

During a good storm, people in northern states such as North Dakota, Minnesota, Maine, Michigan and Washington state may catch a glimpse of the northern lights.

Can you see auroras in California?

According to Watters, it is possible for Californians to see the northern lights.

The northern lights made a rare appearance in the Golden State in March, and more sightings were expected that November.

Bill Murtagh, program coordinator at NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center spoke to The Sacramento Bee in March and said that the displays may be more frequent in coming years due to the sun’s cycle.

“It can happen — but it’s virtually impossible to predict,” Watters said.

He advises waiting for a really big solar storm to happen in order to spot aurora borealis.

This story was originally published January 9, 2024 at 5:30 AM.