Solar storm brings northern lights to America. Will they be visible from Ohio tonight?

[Note: This story has been updated with James Powel's correct publication.]

A solar eclipse is coming. A "new" star is expected to join the night sky this year. And now, the northern lights could shine in portions of the United States tonight.

A severe solar storm is pushing the aurora borealis south into the lower 48 states, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center.

On X, formerly Twitter, the Prediction Center said that a coronal mass ejection from the sun arrived Sunday and caused a severe storm in the earth's magnetic field (level G4 on a scale of G1 to G5). The center said that the strong geomagnetic storm could continue through the rest of Sunday and into Monday.

Northern lights forecast tonight

Monday night's NOAA aurora forecast shows that the northern lights could be visible in the northern United States, as far south as Iowa and northern Illinois.

Will the northern lights be visible in Ohio tonight?

It's possible the aurora will be visible as far south as Cleveland, according to Erica Grow Cei, an NOAA meteorologist, but it's highly unlikely. The view line in the NOAA's aurora forecast shows the aurora reaching into southern Michigan, but not pushing beyond Lake Erie.

What is the aurora borealis?

Auroras are ribbons of light weaving across Earth's northern or southern polar regions, according to NASA. They are caused by magnetic storms that have been triggered by solar activity, such as solar flares (explosions on the Sun) or coronal mass ejections (ejected gas bubbles). Energetic charged particles from these events are carried away from the Sun by the solar wind.

During major geomagnetic storms, they expand away from the poles and can be seen over some of the United States, according to the NOAA.

What is a coronal mass ejection?

NASA describes coronal mass ejections as "huge bubbles of coronal plasma threaded by intense magnetic field lines that are ejected from the Sun over the course of several hours." The space agency says they often look like "huge, twisted rope" and can occur with solar flares, or explosions on the sun's surface.

James Powel of USA Today contributed to this report.