The Aurora Borealis is a natural light display that happens when charged particles from the sun crash into the earth's atmosphere at high speeds.
Ryan Harriott is president of the Michigan Storm Chasers, a small team that alerts the public to aurora activity.
He says forecasting auroras is tricky, and the tools for it are still limited...
"When we see these magnetometers dropping - which kind of measure the strength or effects on the earth's magnetosphere in real time - we know energy is building. Then we see it spike, we can know it's about to release. It's like a burst of aurora."
Harriott says aurora substorms start at random and typically last from five to thirty minutes.