Look Up! You Could Spot The Northern Lights From Southeast Michigan Overnight

DETROIT (WWJ) - It's a rare occurrence that takes place about every five years — and if the skies stay clear overnight, Michiganders will get a chance to see the Northern Lights.

MLive Meteorologist Mark Torregrossa says that as long as the weather cooperates (and it looks like it will) metro Detroiters should be able to catch a glimpse of the dazzling red, orange, green, and blue phenomenon — early Wednesday morning, between 12 a.m. and 3 a.m.

So where's the best place to watch the show?

"The farther north you are, of course, the better your chance of seeing it higher on the horizon," Torregrossa said. "But the chance of seeing it comes all the way down to about Lansing, Ann Arbor, and maybe just recently they even dropped it down to the southern Michigan border."

"You have to be in a very dark area, and you have to look low on the horizon when you're in the southern part of Michigan," he added. "So, you've gotta get out into the country, and you have to get away from any lights — so that pretty much means you need to be out in the rural areas of Michigan to see the Northern Lights."

According to the Northern Lights Center, the Northern Lights — also known as aurora borealis —  are the result of collisions between gaseous, electrically charged  particles in the Earth's atmosphere with charged particles released from the sun's atmosphere. Variations in color are due to the type of gas particles that are colliding.

It is, Torregrossa told WWJ's Zahra Huber, a sight worth seeing.

"If you've ever seen 'em, they are really fantastic," Torregrossa said. "I remember one time driving across the UP, and I watched 'em the whole night, and they were spectacular...If you ever get to see a really good Northern Lights show, you'll never forget it."