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Is seeing the northern lights, also known as the aurora borealis, on your bucket list? This could be a chance to check it off your list without leaving Rhode Island.

From Friday night to early Saturday morning, the Aurora Borealis will potentially be visible over the northern United States, possibly reaching as far as Virginia, Missouri, Colorado.

Though a rare occurrence overall, this is the second year in a row that the northern lights have come south. An April 2023, they were visible all the way to Arizona.

While the prediction say they are likely to be visible in the Ocean State, AccuWeather’s forecast says the viewing conditions may be poor because of cloud cover. But the show might return again on Saturday night, when conditions might be better.

What is the Aurora Borealis?

The phenomenon of the northern lights is caused by massive clouds of charged particles released by the sun toward the Earth, events known as coronal mass ejections. Upon impact with the Earth’s magnetic field, these particles interact with molecules of atmospheric gases to ignite the aurora borealis over the Northern Hemisphere, usually over Canada.

Situations such as this one result from larger coronal mass ejections, which can mean the lights will spark over larger portions of the Northern Hemisphere.

Best places to see the Northern Lights 2024

Barring cloud cover, which could be an issue for viewers in the Northeast, for best results it’s recommended to travel somewhere with as little light pollution as possible and look to the northern horizon.

“I personally have seen them five times, the best in 2003,” Francine Jackson, staff astronomer at Brown University’s Ladd Observatory said last July. “The best way to see them here has to be a place with a good northern horizon, with as little light pollution as possible.”

If you’re trying to see the lights, she recommended finding a north-facing beach.

Even if you don’t get the best view on Friday, if the coronal mass ejections continue at their present level, the northern lights could still be visible here on Saturday night as well.

PROVIDENCE – A Johnston, RI, beef slaughterhouse was fined $20,000 and placed on three years of federal probation by U.S. District Court Judge Mary S. McElroy for fraudulently claiming that product they processed and suppled to customers had been federally inspected and passed as required under the Federal Meat Inspection Act (FMIA) when, in fact, it had not, announced United States Attorney Zachary A. Cunha.

Rhode Island Beef and Veal and one of its owners, Michael A. Quattrucci, previously pleaded guilty to charges of defrauding customers by claiming that beef had been inspected under the FMIA, as well as preparing beef without complying with inspection requirements of the FMIA. Additionally, Rhode Island Beef and Veal pleaded guilty to a charge of defrauding customers by use of an official inspection mark of the Secretary of Agriculture without authorization.

Micheal A. Quattrucci was sentenced on July 27, 2023, to one year of federal probation and ordered to pay a fine of $1,000.

According to court documents and information presented to the court, on August 20, 2019, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food Safety Inspection Service served RI Beef and Veal with a notice of suspension and withdrew its inspector. Eight days after the suspension was imposed and the inspector was withdrawn, a USDA supervisor visited the plant and found employees packing various cuts of meat and fraudulently applying USDA marks of inspections to the meat. Additionally, packaged meat with USDA stickers attached was found stored in bins. No inspector was present, as is required by law for these marks to be applied.

A day later, a USDA investigator visited the slaughterhouse and took photos of the illegally marked packages of beef that had been retained from the day before; he also noted 224 pounds of unmarked ground beef and a 594-pound half carcass of beef that had been freshly cut into primal parts for delivery to a customer in Connecticut who supplies meat products to restaurants.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Milind M. Shah.

The matter was investigated by the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service.