A CME hit earth at around 15:20pm this afternoon, at present it looks like it was a weak impact but solar activity had growing over the evening with the northern lights currently visible at present tonight already in parts of Scotland.

Minor G1-class geomagnetic storms are likely The CME was hurled in our direction by a C1.6-class solar flare from decaying sunspot AR2871 on Sept. 28th.

Some clear patches will be in the forecast tonight for parts of the country but there will be a good deal of cloud also in places with some heavy showers also possible.

At present the best places to see the northern lights will be across northern parts of Ulster and northern parts of Connacht where the best of the clear spells also look likely later.

As mentioned above activity may grow a little more later allow the BZ to drop further south with a possible glimpse possible in parts of Ireland.

If you are going out in search don’t expect them to be there right away as the can come and go as fast.

The moon tonight will not have much of a effect as its only 33.2% Waning Crescent and it doesn’t rise until around 00:25 Friday morning.

Across northern parts of Scotland the northern lights are currently visible but we would need to see that BZ to come a little further south for them to be visible.

The attached image below shows the aurora on the live cam tonight at the Cliff Cam in the shetlands Scotland.