Nebraska
Alabama Joins Ohio, North Carolina, Kansas, Nebraska, Washington and More US States to Prepare for Super Cosmic Northern Light Show, Turbocharging Astro Tourism in America, Full Guide on Aurora Borealis Visibility – Travel And Tour World
Published on
January 20, 2026
By: Tuhin Sarkar
Get ready for the most breathtaking celestial event to hit the United States in years! Alabama has joined the ranks of Ohio, North Carolina, Kansas, Nebraska, Washington, and more U.S. states, as they prepare for an extraordinary northern light show this Monday night. This rare phenomenon is turbocharging astro tourism in America as Aurora Borealis makes its way farther south than ever before.
Super cosmic displays of northern lights are set to illuminate the sky, offering a once-in-a-lifetime experience for skywatchers across the country. From Alabama to Washington, the chance to see the aurora borealis is finally within reach for thousands who have never experienced this stunning natural light show.
The intensity of this aurora display is expected to astonish viewers, especially with the sun’s recent powerful eruption, setting the stage for a dazzling show in the winter sky. This event promises to be the ultimate cosmic spectacle, drawing astro tourism enthusiasts from every corner of the U.S. Get ready to witness the northern lights like never before, with full visibility across several states—keep reading to find out how and where you can experience this mesmerizing show firsthand!
Breathtaking Northern Lights to Light Up the Sky: Will You See the Aurora on Monday Night?
Get ready for a once-in-a-lifetime spectacle! The northern lights are expected to dance across the sky like never before, as a powerful solar eruption sends a cloud of charged particles racing toward Earth. For the first time in months, Aurora Borealis is forecast to be visible as far south as Alabama and Northern California, lighting up the night in an extraordinary display. If you’ve always dreamed of witnessing this mesmerizing natural wonder, Monday night, January 21, 2026, is your chance to catch the aurora as it flares to life across dozens of U.S. states. The question is, will you be able to see it in all its glory? Stay tuned as we break down the phenomenal northern lights forecast and how to prepare for this awe-inspiring cosmic event.
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With the geomagnetic storm expected to reach level 4 out of 5, the event promises to be a powerful spectacle, and the lights could be seen even farther south than usual. Don’t miss your chance to be part of the northern lights phenomenon as they make their way across the country!
How the Sun’s Explosive Eruption Will Create the Biggest Aurora Display in Months!
It all started with a solar eruption that happened on Sunday, releasing a coronal mass ejection (CME), a cloud of charged particles, toward our planet. This eruption is set to hit Earth on Monday night or early Tuesday, triggering dazzling displays of the northern lights across regions that rarely witness the aurora. According to the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center, this geomagnetic storm will reach level 4 out of 5, classified as “severe.” With this level of intensity, even people in areas far south of the usual aurora zone—like Alabama and Northern California—could get a glimpse of the lights.
This is huge news for anyone in the lower 48 states, as this kind of aurora display is typically limited to the northernmost regions. The powerful solar flare means that more people than ever before will have the chance to witness this stunning celestial event. Will you be one of them? The lights could be faint, but cameras might still capture the magical glow if you’re far south. It’s time to prepare for a visual extravaganza in the sky that is expected to leave you breathless!
Where to See the Northern Lights: A Guide for U.S. Viewers!
If you live in the Northern U.S., your chances of seeing a spectacular aurora display are significantly higher. Areas like Ohio Valley, Kansas, Nebraska, and parts of the Rocky Mountains will have the best viewing conditions. Clear skies will play a crucial role in whether or not you can see the aurora with your naked eye. If you’re lucky enough to find clear skies in the forecast, get ready for a jaw-dropping experience! But even in the southern U.S., where the lights are less visible, you may still be able to capture the aurora on camera as it faintly glows in the distance.
For those in the lower U.S., where the aurora may be harder to spot, keep your cameras ready. Though the aurora may only be a faint glow near the horizon, technology can capture the beauty that the human eye might miss. Don’t forget to dress warmly—this will be a cold night for skywatchers as temperatures are expected to dip well below freezing across most of the country. Bundle up and get ready for a night you won’t soon forget!
The Perfect Timing: When and Where to Catch the Best Aurora Viewing!
Timing is everything when it comes to catching the northern lights. The geomagnetic storm is forecast to peak around Monday night, with the lights being most visible in the hours after sunset. So, if you’re in the southern U.S., you’ll need to stay up late, as the aurora will likely appear around 10 p.m. to midnight local time. If you’re in the north or Canada, the aurora will appear earlier in the evening, possibly stretching higher into the sky during stronger bursts.
Keep in mind that cloud cover will be the biggest factor in whether you’ll get to see the aurora. Clear skies in Ohio Valley and the Rocky Mountains are predicted to offer the best views. If you’re in the Midwest or the Dakotas, clouds may limit visibility. So, check the weather and find the best spots with clear skies. Dress warmly, grab your camera, and head to an open space where there are no streetlights to block your view.
What You Need to Know About the Solar Storm: A Cosmic Event Like No Other
While the northern lights are the highlight of the event, there is more to this solar storm than meets the eye. The radiation storm caused by the solar flare is the strongest since 2003, and it could have significant effects on satellite communications and aviation. Astronauts on the International Space Station will be exposed to higher radiation levels during this event. Similarly, passengers on flights that pass over the polar regions could experience increased radiation exposure. The solar storm also raises concerns about the electrical grid, although it’s unlikely to cause widespread damage.
Despite these potential effects, the northern lights remain one of nature’s most awe-inspiring phenomena. The solar flare has created the perfect conditions for a spectacular light show that could be visible in places that would usually never see it. Prepare yourself for a stunning cosmic event that will be remembered for years to come!
Nebraska
Webinar scheduled to discuss Nebraska cattle health
The Nebraska Extension will host a statewide webinar, “Nebraska Cattle Health Outlook: New World screwworm update, Scours prevention and diagnostics, and UNL research on bovine pinkeye” on Thursday, April 16, from 6 to 7:30 p.m. MT. The program is designed for Nebraska beef producers and allied industry professionals seeking timely information on late-spring herd health risks.
The webinar will feature Dr. Matt Hille, Assistant Professor and diagnostic pathologist at the Nebraska Veterinary Diagnostic Center. After graduating with his DVM from Iowa State University, Dr. Hille practiced feedlot and cow-calf medicine in South Dakota for five years. He returned to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln to complete a Ph.D. and residency in Anatomic Pathology. His research and diagnostic interests focus on infectious diseases and immunology of beef cattle.
Topics will include:
New World screwworm update
Prevention and diagnostic strategies for calf scours
UNL research on bovine pinkeye
The program will provide practical, research-based information to help producers make informed herd health decisions heading into the late spring and summer months.
The webinar is free, but register for the link at https://pears.io/events/nebraskaextension/5109
For more information, contact Brock Ortner at 308-327-2312 or bortner2@nebraska.edu
-University of Nebraska–Lincoln
Nebraska
Massive wildfires dealt another blow to Nebraska ranchers. Climate change may make them more common. – Flatwater Free Press
This story is made possible through a partnership between Flatwater Free Press and Grist, a nonprofit environmental media organization.
Mike Wintz was nearly 4 miles away and in the thick of fighting the Morrill Fire when he heard over the radio that the flames were headed for his home.
“I didn’t leave. I just basically fought my way back towards my ranch,” Wintz said. “A couple of the other outfits were headed to the house to kind of head it off … I just put my trust in the neighbors and the other firefighters.”
The group stopped the fire near Wintz’s front door, but the next day, the winds shifted, the fire flared and Wintz’s home was threatened a second time.
A wall of smoke, wind and heat rolled hard and fast over the hill toward Wintz’s house as a group of firefighters and local ranchers fought to protect his home.
“We would have lost the house … (and) all the buildings, if it wouldn’t have been for them guys, because they stood right in the front of the fire and stayed right with it,” Wintz said. “It got to where it was kind of scary. Am I going to be able to keep on breathing? It was that heavy.”
In all his decades as a rancher and volunteer firefighter in western Nebraska, Wintz had never seen anything like this before. This fire, the largest documented blaze in state history, took out nearly everything in its path, including all of Wintz’s grazing land, about 900 bales of hay, the hair off his bulls and potentially two of his calves. The flames left his yearlings with singe marks on their backs.
His experience is just one of many ranchers in the state as wildfires continue to spark up after a record-breaking mild and dry winter. And the current conditions are likely not a one-off.
With the Earth continuing to warm as a result of climate change, Nebraska will likely see more volatile winters, said Eric Hunt, a University of Nebraska-Lincoln agriculture meteorology and climate resilience extension educator. While winters are likely to be more wet, there will be years that are more extremely mild and dry.
This could set the stage for more intense wildfires and further challenge Nebraska’s cattle industry — a critical part of the state’s economy.
Nebraska ranked first in the country for beef and veal exports in 2024 with $1.66 billion, according to the state Department of Agriculture. In the same year, Nebraska produced nearly 16% of the country’s receipts from cattle and calves, which were also the state’s most valuable commodity. And most of Nebraska’s second-most valuable commodity, corn, is used as livestock feed.
While the industry generates greenhouse gas emissions, it is also threatened by the resulting climate impacts.

“We’re entering a new kind of wildfire era for this generation than what past generations have experienced, and it’s pretty well established on why,” said Dirac Twidwell, a rangeland and fire ecologist at UNL.
Three months in, 2026 has already set a record for most documented acres burned by wildfire in the state, breaking the 2012 record, according to the Nebraska State Climate Office.
Even before the recent wildfires, Nebraska’s cattle industry was already facing headwinds. The number of cattle operations has declined between 2012 and 2022. Meanwhile, the ag business is aging, with the average age of a producer in the state at nearly 57 years old.
“I think there’s a lot of producers … they don’t have a second generation coming back, and if they do, the writing on the wall sometimes says that there’s other ways to make money that’s easier, and you can make more money doing other things,” said Jaslyn Livingston, a rancher, volunteer firefighter and appointed member of the Cattlemen’s Beef Board. “If you’re thinking about retiring anyways … (the wildfires) just kind of could be the deal that tips it over.”
Climate change and wildfires
Hunt, the UNL ag climate expert, was blunt when it comes to describing the current conditions.
“Things are very, very bad at the western part of the state … I can’t emphasize enough how disastrous this winter has been for western Nebraska,” he said.

This past winter was the second warmest and fourth driest on record. Nebraska hit its warmest average high temperature at 47.3 degrees, beating the winter of 1999-2000 by nearly 3 degrees. Most of the state hit record high temperatures in the 80s and 90s on March 21.
Nearly the entire state is in a drought, with parts of west, central and northeast Nebraska categorized in extreme drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor’s March 26 update.
As global temperatures continue to rise as a result of climate change, Nebraska could expect to see more years with mild and dry conditions like this, Hunt said.
Between 1994 to 2023, the majority of Nebraska saw its average winter temperature increase by more than 2 degrees compared to 1895 to 1960, according to the 2024 state climate change impact assessment report.
Meanwhile, the Panhandle and west central, central and northeast Nebraska all saw small decreases in precipitation amounts during the winter.
These dry and warm conditions make the land more vulnerable to wildfires, especially when combined with strong winds. The Panhandle saw some gusts hit over 70 mph, possibly stronger when the Morrill Fire started.
Though the largest on record, the Morrill Fire is only one of seven large wildfires that have broken out in the past month, according to the Fire Enterprise Geospatial Portal. The Morrill, Cottonwood, Anderson Bridge and Road 203 wildfires all erupted in central and western Nebraska within a few days of each other.
Just as firefighters were reaching containment on the Morrill and Cottonwood fires, two new blazes started up in the Sandhills and rapidly grew to about 50,000 acres.
As of March 30, the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency estimated wildfires have impacted about 945,381 acres so far this year, though the agency noted not all wildfires had confirmed acreage data.
Nebraska has about 23 million acres of range and pasture land, roughly half of which is located in the Sandhills.
Fire is not new to this part of the state, Twidwell said, but a new trend is emerging.

“It’s kind of a shock and trauma factor to a state when it hasn’t happened to this scope and scale, but it’s following a trend we’re seeing throughout the Great Plains of increased wildfire currents, activity and total acres burned,” Twidwell said.
Still, Nebraska is classified nationally as low vulnerability to wildfires due, in part, to the state having had fewer fires to date and the fact that the state is largely rural and fewer lives and structures are at risk, Twidwell said.
The recent wildfires are responsible for damaging or destroying about 112 structures and are responsible for at least one death as of March 31, according to NEMA.
But the wildfires also have scorched hundreds of thousands of acres of something that many Nebraskans in that part of the state hold close to heart: land.
“There’s a lot of people out there that this (ranching) is their livelihoods. This is what their families have been for generations,” said Matt Cover, a rancher in the Sandhills. “These people … we saved their houses when we fought fires, we saved most of all these houses, but now they have to live in the middle of these sand dunes, and what a depressing setting to wake up to … every single day.”
Aftermath of the wildfires
For 21 years, Wintz and his wife, Kayla, worked to maintain the leased land their ranch sits on after taking over the cow-calf operations from Kayla’s parents, who had been in the business for over 25 years. In less than six hours, nearly all of that land burned.
For the Wintz family and other ranchers, the timing couldn’t have been worse — the wildfires hit just as calving season was starting. It’s the one time you don’t want to move cattle around, Wintz said. The devastation caused by the fire left them no choice.
The stress can take its toll on pregnant cows, and Wintz knew he was going to lose a few calves. Thus far, he has lost six.
“The impact that it will be this fall is I won’t be able to probably keep any replacement heifers for the next year’s herd,” Wintz said. “I imagine I’ll cull some cows a little bit deeper than I normally would, too … My herd will be reduced, that’s for sure.”
What has kept him going day after day has been his neighbors and folks from across the state who have donated. A couple offered to let him move his cattle onto their land, which saves him some expense.
Many folks have also donated enough hay for him to make it into the summer and a bit longer in case his ranch doesn’t green up by then. Right now, he doesn’t have carryover hay for next year. Hay prices before the wildfires were relatively cheap, said Livingston, the Cattlemen’s Beef Board member. Now, due to the demand caused by the wildfires and drought, she expects they will go up.
Wintz is also planning to lease additional land for summer grass, a costly move as rental rates for both pasture and cow-calf pairs increased by nearly 4% in 2025, according to UNL.

Some businesses have also reached out to him about helping with fencing material, another item on his to-do list. He won’t have to worry about burned buildings, though other ranchers impacted by wildfires aren’t so lucky.
Wintz said the wildfire will likely impact his operation the next two to three years.
It’s a very involved industry that continues to consolidate. The number of cattle-and-calves operations in the state fell from 23,280 in 2012 to 16,958 in 2022, according to Census of Agriculture reports.
Ag is also an aging industry: Nearly 30,000 producers in Nebraska in 2022 were age 65 or older.
Younger farmers and ranchers, without much capital, might not be able to handle a disaster like these wildfires, said Al Davis, a former rancher and state senator turned Sierra Club lobbyist.
Climate change impacts are making the business more difficult. Rangeland productivity is threatened by the changing temperatures and precipitation trends, according to the 2024 state climate change impact assessment ordered by the Nebraska Legislature. More intense droughts during the summer growing season could lead to a decline in available and quality forage. This could decrease livestock production and performance. Cattle operations could be further impacted by increased wildfire risks.
Drought has already led ranchers to reduce herd sizes in recent years, which has helped drive up the price of beef, said Elliott Dennis, associate professor of agriculture economics at UNL. Before the fires, some ranchers were likely considering further shrinking their herds — despite steady consumer demand for beef — due to drought conditions. The fires could solidify those decisions for some, which will hit cow-calf producers the hardest in the immediate aftermath, Dennis said. The whole supply chain will eventually be impacted.
This reality will require Nebraska’s cattle industry to adapt and innovate, Twidwell said.
Some of these ideas could include larger scale planning and management, such as using prescribed burns in some areas and making more buildings fire resilient. But these innovations will need to be experimented with and proven with producers, Twidwell cautioned. There won’t be one easy solution.
“Let’s take care of people and get that done, and then let’s keep doing our job and set the stage in the future, given that the game is changing and these wildfire problems are expanding,” Twidwell said. “Ranchers are looking to solve the actual wildfire problem, not just reduce fuels.”
Right now, Wintz is taking it a day at a time and holding out hope that the rain comes.
“The Sandhills are resilient. The grass is there. It just needs a little bit of moisture to pop up and they’ll be back,” Wintz said. “It’s just going to be a different year for me: calving different and haying different, summer range different … you gotta let the land come back, I guess. We need the rain.”
Nebraska
Nebraska lawmakers may enhance penalties for repeat offenders of protection orders
The National Network to End Domestic Violence reported that more than 300 Nebraska children and adults sought refuge in emergency shelters after domestic violence in 2025. To that end, opponents like Sen. Ashlei Spivey suggested that, instead of creating new felonies, lawmakers should focus on supporting mental health or housing services.
“Our policies are only addressing a symptom of the issue,” Spivey said.
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