Northern Lights May Be Visible In Parts Of U.S. On Christmas

ACROSS AMERICA — A solar storm could bring a northern lights display to some parts of the upper U.S. on Thursday, according to the Space Weather Prediction Center, which issued a geomagnetic storm watch.

The solar flare heading toward Earth is called a coronal mass ejection, or CME — a huge expulsion of plasma from the sun's outer layer, called the corona.
Where aurora borealis displays can be seen is difficult to predict, but a map on the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks website shows the northern lights could be visible from Great Falls, Montana, to upper Maine.