Northern Lights expected to return to Oregon this week. Will the clouds clear in time?

Two unexpected phenomena are clashing in the skies over Oregon tonight.

A new magnetic storm means another good shot at viewing the aurora borealis – the strongest chance since the last big show of northern lights in May. However, the event is overlapping with a summer rainstorm that’s lingering over much of Oregon, potentially barring the lights from view.

The aurora may be visible Monday night for about the northeastern half of Oregon, according to the Space Weather Prediction Center. At the same time, the National Weather Service is forecasting clouds and rain across most of that area. The northern lights should be strong again Tuesday night, and maybe even Wednesday, but the view line is expected to shift north, excluding most of the state.

Forecasts for the northern lights are notoriously tricky – weather forecasts much less so. Oregonians hoping to see the aurora will likely be better off trying to look skyward Tuesday or Wednesday night, when the clouds begin to part.

According to Spaceweather.com, the aurora was triggered by a “cannibal” coronal mass ejection, a mass of solar storms that flings a large amount of plasma and radiation into space. When those storms collide with Earth, they cause geomagnetic storms, which are disturbances in our planet’s magnetic field.

This week’s event is not expected to be as strong as the one in May, Forbes reported, though the two were created by similar solar storms.

–Jamie Hale covers travel and the outdoors and co-hosts the Peak Northwest podcast. Reach him at 503-294-4077, jhale@oregonian.com or @HaleJamesB.

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