Chicago weather: Sunshine and 50s ahead after stunning Northern Lights display

Chicago weather: Wednesday morning forecast

FOX 32's Mike Caplan breaks down today's weather outook.

CHICAGO - Obviously, the main meteorological story has more to do with astronomy than weather. 

The northern lights put on an incredible show last night and there is a smaller chance that they repeat in some fashion tonight. I’ll keep you posted as conditions warrant. 

Chicago weather forecast

What we know:

Weatherwise, today will feature plenty of sunshine, a pretty decent breeze and temperatures that will be warmer. In fact, highs should get into the low to mid 50s this afternoon. Tonight will be mainly clear and chilly with lows in the mid 30s.

Tomorrow will be partly to mostly sunny with temperatures again in the mid to upper 50s. 

On Friday it looks like we can get to around 60° under partly sunny skies with even warmer weather on the way for Saturday. Highs on Saturday should get into the mid 60s feeling toasty by November standards. 

I am yanking rain completely out of the forecast for the weekend as there is simply no forecast model support for it. However, one change is to bring in cooler air sooner so that Sunday is not as warm as it appeared earlier this week. Highs may struggle to get much past 50 degrees in fact on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.

Northern Lights

Dig deeper:

It will go down as one of the most widely photographed northern lights episodes on record. More than 30 states were able to view them last night, including all of Chicagoland. They were triggered by explosions of energized plasma from the sun—specifically a sunspot group designated 4274. 

This part of the sun has been sending flares into space for days and an X-class flare (the strongest type) merged with an earlier flare to create the aurora borealis here. These flares create Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) which if aimed just right, can hit the earth’s magnetic field and charge various gases high in our atmosphere, causing them to glow and pulse.  The usual green color of the northern lights is due to "excitement" of oxygen molecules around 60-180 miles up. Reds are typically seen only in strong events (like this one) and are due to oxygen reacting at higher altitudes—usually 180-250 miles high.  Pinks and purples involve nitrogen and are lower in altitude which is why these colors are often found lower in the display from the viewer’s vantage point. Last night’s eruption involved a G5 geomagnetic storm—that’s the strongest classification.

This was also a rare Ground Level Event or GLE. The solar flare was so powerful that protons penetrated the atmosphere and reached the earth’s surface. This happens roughly once every 20 years.

It's too early to predict whether an encore will occur tonight.  I’ll stay on top of the potential so stay tuned.