“I did not see the northern lights yesterday,” I told my mother on the phone as soon as she picked up.

My mother, an atmospheric scientist who lives in the Southern hemisphere, dreams about seeing the aurora borealis. She was silent for a few seconds before scolding me.

“I cannot believe you, Clara,” she said in Portuguese. “I cannot believe you missed seeing the northern lights because you were sitting indoors watching a horror movie that has been out since 1974. This is a rare event, you know, and even people in big cities got to see it. I can’t believe you.”

“I hope you make better decisions tonight,” she said.

So, Baltimore — if you missed the lights, be it due to weather conditions or because you were a silly goose like me, there is still a chance you might be able to witness this rare event tonight. But chances are not looking as good as Thursday.

I don’t know about you, Baltimore, but I’m going to hold on to any hope I can get. If you are with me, here are some places where people on social media said they were able to see the lights. People seemed to have good luck on rooftops, decks, parking lots and stadiums. The suburbs were also looking good. The best bet to see the lights is on the horizon and outside of the bright lights of the city.

• Baltimore, including Roland Park, Federal Hill, Fells Point, Butchers Hill.
• Towson, including near Unitas Stadium and just south of the Beltway off of Charles.
• Owings Mills, including at Soldiers Delight and at Garrison Forest Road.
• Millersville
• North East
• Joppatowne
• Lauraville
• Frederick
• Prettyboy Reservoir

We will still be under a severe geomagnetic storm watch tonight, issued by the Space Weather Prediction Center after scientists detected a coronal mass ejection — a large blast of plasma and magnetic field from the sun’s surface — earlier this week.

Shawn Dahl, a service coordinator at the Space Weather Prediction Center, said the center’s forecast was “spot-on,” which, if you know anything about space weather prediction, is no easy feat. This storm was ranked a 4 in the center’s severity scale from 1 to 5 throughout the day and overnight hours, Dahl said.

“The aurora should settle down this evening as the cause of all this activity is nearly completed its passage over Earth, so conditions are weakening,” Dahl said in a statement to The Baltimore Banner. “The CME (coronal mass ejection) that spawned all this activity, will pass beyond Earth tomorrow.”

“The outer atmosphere is really quite disturbed still even though the cause is weakening, so northern tier states should not be surprised if the aurora is still faintly visible along the horizon tonight,” he said. “Regarding Baltimore - maybe only a slight chance.”

Truth be told, I’m realizing now I could have seen the lights after the movie. But I was such a scaredy-cat last night that I could barely look out my window without imagining the sounds of a chainsaw. This time, though, I’m taking my chances, however slim they are. Leatherface and all.