Many missed this week’s aurora due to clouds, light pollution or a simple lack of patience. Here’s how to prepare better.

On Tuesday, NOAA issued a G4, or severe, geomagnetic storm watch in response to recent coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, from the sun. CMEs are huge bubbles of coronal plasma that the sun occasionally ejects, NASA says. The highest geomagnetic storm level is G5, which is considered extreme.

The northern lights were visible Tuesday night across the Chicago area, illuminating the sky with brightly colorful displays due to severe solar storms.

Strong geomagnetic storms and a moderate solar radiation storm have led to an aurora view forecast for Wednesday night in the northern U.S.

Many Georgians already caught a glimpse of a rare northern lights show Tuesday night. The atmospheric glow is typically seen only around the North and South poles, but a much larger swath of the country saw the display because of unusually strong solar storms that are sending outbursts of magnetically charged particles hurling toward Earth.