At Providence, solar aurora may be visible overnight Mon into Tue, although fairly unlikely. Aurora is unusual at latitudes this far south, but it typically happens a few times every year.
Weather at Providence during the potential aurora will be partly cloudy with about 50% cloud cover, temperature about 60°F and near-zero chance of rain.
The aurora is caused by a pair of solar flares on Aug 30, a relatively small magnitude M1.3 event at 1159UTC (0759EDT) and a larger and long-duration M2.7 event at 2002UTC (1602EDT), producing a combined coronal mass ejection (CME) heading toward earth and predicted to cause a G3 (strong) storm in the earth’s geomagnetic field. Such storms are usually imperceptible to humans, but, in addition to visible aurora, they may cause disruptions of radio communications and systems that rely on orbiting satellites, such as Global Positioning System (GPS), and in rare cases can affect the electrical power grid.
