Let's talk about getting the most out of this opportunity.
This is what we saw back in May.
Remember in the Northern Lights when they lit up the
sky and everybody was going wild?
I mean, this was an extreme geomagnetic storm,
A level G5. That's not quite what we expect to
see this week as a moderate strong geomagnetic magnetic storms
are in the forecast.
Last Tuesday, we expected to see some Aurora lights,
but the coronal mass ejection missed Earth and LED to
a
event. So could that happen again?
And what should we expect for this week?
Let's ask NASA Ambassador Tony Rice.
He joins me now. And Tony,
there's a much greater confidence that we'll see the
Aurora's overnight here over last week,
what we saw, what can we expect for tonight?
Yeah, this one's a little bit different.
Last week we were expecting that G3 like you mentioned
and it's, it's, it's really hard to predict these things.
As you mentioned, it missed us.
This one's a little bit different because we've got two
coronal mass ejections heading towards us and they're expected to
merge.
So there are two energies that can combine.
We call these, and this is such a great name,
a cannibal CME as those two come together and that
could bring enough energy into the upper atmosphere to produce
the kind of colors that you're seeing on your screen
right here. So the the website that we're all watching
right now is NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center.
And we're seeing a map that shows that that could
produce some of those auroras dipping down in the United
States along that US Canada border and perhaps even into
the upper Midwest as you mentioned.
And
so I want to ask you about this because
I love the cannibal CME that's got people's heads turning
into this as well.
But Tony, then we talk about this is ranked out
AG one out of G5.
That's a graph that we're showing.
This looks like it could potentially be AG
three event. Can you walk us through what the labeling
is?
Because then when you look at the side it says
KP index zero out of nine.
So kind of give us a little insight of what
this is measuring.
So the KP index is,
is measuring the electrification of the upper atmosphere and it's
a,
a potential and it's that electrification that's producing those,
you know, bright colored lights in the skies.
It's, it's activating some of the
electrons they're spinning off and creating some of those kind
of lights.
So they're just different scales there.
I mean, you can kind of think of the,
the G3 through G5 and and so on and so
forth
as being like any other storm scale here on the
earth.
So it's just a way of measuring that you you've
got to have that,
that G5 are going to have that G3 to produce
Aurora into the United States and it's got to be
up into
the higher numbers to make it deeper into the US
to be seen like we saw back down in in
May,
even as far South as Florida.
Just point out, we're not expected to see that tonight,
but hopefully it will happen again in the future sometime.
So when we look at tonight,
what are some of the top places because Tony,
often times they talk about Northern Lights people like,
oh, Iceland, I got to go there.
Hey, no, I got to go to Alaska in the
last frontier.
You brought up that actually the contiguous 48 can't get
in on these opportunities with
AG3. What we're looking at for tonight,
What are some good spots that you're kind of honing
in on?
Absolutely. I'm looking at the map on the NOAA website
right now,
good portions of Minnesota and the Dakotas.
You mentioned the wildfires might make Montana a little bit
more difficult.
Maine is another great place that you might be able
to see them.
You know, unfortunately, it might be running up against some
cloud cover there as well.
That line that you show there,
that's kind of the lower level of where you might
see some effects of this.
This is all happening very high in the upper atmosphere.
So if you're closer to that yellow line,
you still might be able to see this a little
bit.
And what you're going to be looking for is the
northern horizon.
And you might see a little bit of a,
a change of color, perhaps some greens,
perhaps some pinks. And what you're actually seeing is the
roar there.
And it kind of gives you an idea of just
how high up in the atmosphere this is to be
able to see that,
that far South. And Tony,
when we think about the extreme storm that was back
in May and we had predictions last week,
now we have another cycle.
Overall, we talk about seasons.
We here at FOX Weather focus in huge on the
tropical season right now,
even the severe season ongoing long and the short of
it,
is there a Northern Lights season?
How long does this type of kind of
geomagnetic storms last for?
So absolutely, there are seasons on the sun,
but it's a lot longer than the atmospheric seasons that
you're talking about there.
There's something called a solar cycle,
and it lasts for many,
many years. We're on the upswing of that solar cycle,
and it's currently predicted to top out,
you know, maybe sometime later this year or next year.
But we really don't know when that's going to happen.
The sun is getting more and more active.
So the possibility of these things coming up in these
kind of geomagnetic storms occurring as the sun basically burps
and sends a lot of energy out due to all
those sunspots that are occurring on the sun surface,
that is going to continue to increase over the next
couple of months.
So while this might not turn out to be something
that everybody in the US might be able to see
or even everybody in the the northern US,
another one could come along here in the next couple
of months.
So it gives us hope if you missed out on
some of these opportunities,
still time for these storms kind of cycle here in
the next year or so.
NASA Ambassador Tony Rice, thank you so much for joining
us tonight here on Fox WEATHER.
Thanks for having me.