Northern Lights forecast: Historic solar storm impacting Aurora Borealis | LiveNOW from FOX

An unusually strong solar storm hitting Earth could produce northern lights in the U.S. this weekend and potentially disrupt power and communications.

An extreme (G5) geomagnetic storm is currently in progress. This is the strongest solar storm to impact Earth in 21 years, since October 2003.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued a rare severe geomagnetic storm warning when a solar outburst reached Earth on Friday afternoon, hours sooner than anticipated. The effects were due to last through the weekend and possibly into next week.

The Northern Lights may reach much farther south than typical displays due to the strong geomagnetic storm. Experts say that if the storm reaches predicted levels, the aurora could be seen as far south as Alabama and Northern California.

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to be with you I’m your host Mike PA as we continue to talk about some of the big top stories as well as headlines that people are talking about well if you have been a stargazer this past month uh you have really really been in for a treat uh just a month ago of course we had the solar eclipse and now so many will be looking to the Northern Lights as well but there’s so much going on beyond that including some potential for solar storm so let’s bring in our next guest here of this hour this is meteorologist Nick Stewart thanks so much for being with us as we talk about uh what is going to be happening in the skies yeah it’s been a very wild like month or so right between the total solar eclipse we had the weather going out of course the auroras it’s been a while since we’ve had a pretty big show like this one the last one probably April of last year and you know fingers crossed weather permitting uh we should have a pretty good show here coming up around sundown in about two hours or so yeah and explain to our viewers just where uh the best uh locations will be to view uh this great phenomenon yeah definitely the best places to view this uh particular northern light show will be the northern about half of the United States assume the forecast is kind of what we expect uh basically you know from about St Louis over towards maybe Washington DC and Out West maybe toward like Northern California if you’re kind of along and north of that line and that tends to be about the favorite able conditions for this particular show this time around that’s again all courtesy of the space weather prediction center who does working on a lot of this and the forecast is actually already verifying we are at that what’s known as a G4 or level four or five storm here on planet Earth Europe already getting a great show the biggest question is will that persist after Sundown all forecasts are kind of leaning towards the fact that it should be a pretty good show here in North America yeah it really will be and I know so many people are going to be looking to the skies to see this here and and it um how long when’s the last time we saw such a show like this to this magnitude would you say I’d say probably the closest analog to this particular show if you go back to April of last year it was April I believe 23rd into 24th of 2024 uh that was probably the last you know best show that we had I was actually in Eastern Iowa at that point in time and we had the Northern Lights basically right overhead very visible uh for us so that was probably the last good show that we had so just over a year ago and this is kind of what we would expect you these kind of bigger storms because we are near the peak of the space weather the the solar cycle right now is at the maximum period of activity and so this is not that unusual it’s definitely rare in the sense that we don’t get this high of a storm like you know every week uh but you know we’ve definitely seen these storms in the past yeah and this is truly something where I mean communication they even put out those warnings that some Communications could be interrupted here what what do we know about that yeah there definitely could be some impact to um especially if you’re like a ham radio Operator Operator those high frequency radio frequencies those could be kind of impacted by the space weather events um there are also other potential issues to say satellites and orbit and things like that um however this isn’t you know that extreme of an event it’s definitely pretty strong definitely a very good show for Northern Light viewing but the actual impact to Like Satellites and space and all of that we have a pretty good understanding of how to mitigate the impact of those kind of things I do know the space weather prediction center has been in very close contact with all the different satellite operators everyone is very ready you know we’ve had you know 48 to 60 hours to really prepare for this and there’s a lot of things that can be done to mitigate any major issues from this event now uh Nick what I want to know about the Northern Lights is it easy to photograph because you know every July 4th you get so many people that try to photograph uh fireworks and you get fuzzy images and everyone’s trying to post it it’s like just enjoy the show what about what about the Northern Lights yeah I would say the same thing just enjoy the show you know everyone has a smartphone and things like that you can a lot of the modern phones um such as like you know Apple higher-end iPhones or I use a Google pixel for example they have those night modes and assuming you can see the Northern Lights with your naked eye your camera on your phone actually will pick it up pretty easier uh it’s much better to pick it up with like a kind of more professional camera like a DSLR with the right settings you a longer exposure higher ISO things like that you can actually really break out a lot more of the color than what you can see with your eye but even just your smartphone if you’re far enough North you probably get get a pretty good view of Northern Lights with your phone and what about uh for those that are up in the sky I mean can a pilot do pilots get to see this as well I what what’s what’s the latest on that yeah sometimes the pilots get the best shows you know they don’t have to worry about clouds they don’t have to worry about sitting outside when it’s really cold uh thankfully obviously the weather we’re in May it’s not that cold here in North America uh but yeah the pilots they get some great shows and the best thing for Pilots if you’re doing kind of those polar routes so over the far Northern or far Southern portions of our planet I you don’t really even need that strong of a storm to see the Northern Lights so we’ve had many times where you can see them just on kind of you know mundane solar events that we kind of see more periodically Pilots get a great show um I’ve seen some pretty amazing photos from Pilots uh either on X or Facebook and things like that yeah we’re showing some video right now from the ground level and I mean just even on I I can just imagine what it is for the pilots that have have don’t have to worry about the clouds like you said there but I mean from the ground it’s it’s truly fascinating yeah honestly the video like that almost captures it a bit better than actual photos cuz video it’s a little bit more trer to color you know sometimes you see those photos with those bright Reds and bright greens those are a little bit overdone the camera can see a lot more than your eye but the video that that picture you’re showing right there actually shows a little bit better closer to life that’s probably taken with a smartphone have a better idea of what the colors will actually look like but yeah I mean if you’re flying that’s probably the best way uh to know avoid any weather issues and things like that especially if you can catch a a space flight or a a plane ride somewhere lot of people took a plane ride for the eclipse flying through the eclipse path you know why not fly through the Northern Lights yeah there you go Nick Stewart thanks so much for joining us on live now from Fox you got to love when mother nature and Earth really put on a show and uh I know a lot of people will be looking forward to it thanks for breaking it down for us on this Friday evening we appreciate it yeah absolutely thanks Mike thank you guys appreciate it you take care and