PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — An initially promising U.S. forecast for the northern lights has gone bust.
Stargazers in the continental 48 states have essentially zero chance of seeing the astronomical phenomenon this week, the head of operations at the U.S. government’s space weather prediction center said Thursday.
Curtains of color paint the night sky when the northern lights, or aurora borealis, are visible. Some early reports had suggested they would be viewable as far south as Illinois this week.
Robert Rutledge, the lead of operations at the Space Weather Prediction Center, said the agency had high hopes for Thursday and Friday, but it downgraded its forecast because the chances turned out to be a “big miss.”