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

To be with you, I'm your host, Mike PA, as we continue to talk about some of the top stories and headlines people are talking about. Well, if you've been a stargazer this past month, you're really in for a treat. a pleasure, just a month ago of course we had the

solar

eclipse and now many will also be looking at the

northern

lights

, but there is a lot going on beyond that, including the potential for a

solar

storm

, so let's bring our next guest here . This hour, this is meteorologist Nick Stewart, thank you so much for joining us as we talk about what's going to be happening in the skies, yeah, it's been a very wild month, right between the total solar eclipse and the weather shut down. of course the

aurora

s, it's been a while since we've had a show as big as this, the last one was probably April last year and you know, fingers crossed, weather permitting we should have a pretty good show here around sunset in about two hours or so, yes, and explain to our viewers where the best places will be to see this great phenomenon, yes, definitely, the best places to see this particular Northern Lights show will be in the north, about half of the United States.

The

forecast

is pretty much what we expect, basically, you know, from St. Louis, maybe towards Washington DC and westward, maybe towards Northern California, if you're along and north of that line and that It tends to be about favorite conditions. For this particular program, this time it's all courtesy of the space weather prediction center, which works a lot on this and the

forecast

is already verifying that we are in what is known as a G4 or level four or five

storm

here on the planet. Earth Europa is already having quite a show, the biggest question is whether that will persist after sundown.

All predictions are leaning towards the fact that it should be a pretty good show here in North America, yes it really will be, and I know a lot of people will go. be looking up at the sky to see this here and and um, how long was the last time we saw a show like this of this magnitude? Would you say I would probably say it's the closest analogue to this particular show if you go back to April of last year it was April, I think, the 23rd to the 24th of 2024, uh, that was probably the last best show we had.

I was actually in eastern Iowa at the time and we had the Northern Lights basically right above us, very visible, uh. for us, that was probably the last good show we had a little over a year ago and this is what we would expect from these types of larger storms because we are near the peak of the solar cycle space weather right now. is in the peak period of activity and so this is not that unusual, it's definitely rare in the sense that we don't have a storm as high as you know every week, but you know we've definitely seen these storms in last.

Yeah, and this is really something where I'm talking about communication. They even posted those warnings that some communications could be disrupted. What do we know about that? Yeah, there definitely could be some impact on um, especially if you're like a ham radio operator. Those high-frequency radio frequencies could be affected by space weather events. There are also other potential problems like satellites and orbit and things like that. However, this is not such an extreme event, it is definitely quite strong. It's a very good sight to see the Northern Lights, but the actual impact on like satellites and space and all that, we have a pretty good understanding of how to mitigate the impact of that kind of thing.

I know that the space weather prediction center has been in very close contact with all the different satellite operators, they are all very ready. You know, we've had 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, um, Nick. What I want to know about the Northern Lights is that it's easy to photograph because you know every 4th of July there are so many people trying to photograph fireworks and you get blurry images and everyone tries to post them, it's like just enjoying the show.

What's happening? What about the

northern

lights

? Yeah, I'd say the same, just enjoy the show. You know, everyone has a smartphone and stuff like that, you can do it on a lot of the modern phones, like Apple's high-end iPhones or I use a Google. Pixel, for example, have those night modes and, assuming you can see the Northern Lights with the naked eye, your phone's camera will actually capture it quite a bit more easily. It's much better to capture it with a more professional sort of camera, like a DSLR with the right settings, longer exposure, higher ISO, things like that, you can actually bring out a lot more color than you can see with your eyes, but even With just your smartphone, if you're far enough north you'll probably get a pretty good view of the Northern Lights with your phone and what about those in the sky?

I mean, can a pilot make it so pilots can see this too? What's the latest on that? Yes, sometimes pilots get the best. shows that you know they don't have to worry about clouds, they don't have to worry about sitting outside when it's really cold, fortunately, obviously the climate that we're in in May it's not that cold here in North America, but yeah, the pilots Get some cool shows and all the best for pilots if they are doing those polar routes in the northernmost or southernmost parts of our planet. You really don't even need a storm that strong to see the Northern Lights.

So we've had many occasions where you can see them just in mundane solar events that we see more periodically. The drivers get a great show. I've seen some pretty amazing photos of the pilots, either on X or Facebook. and things like that, yeah, we're showing a video right now from ground level and I mean, even at I. I can imagine what it's like for pilots who don't have to worry about clouds like you said there, but I mean, from the ground is really fascinating, yeah honestly a video like that almost captures it a little better than the real photos because the video is a little prettier to color, you know, sometimes you see those photos with those bright reds and greens that are. a bit exaggerated, the camera can see a lot more than your eye, but the video that image you're showing actually shows up a little better, closer to life than it was probably taken with a smartphone, you get a better idea of What will the colors be? actually it seems like, but yeah, I mean, if you're flying, that's probably the best way to know, avoid weather problems and things like that, especially if you can take a space flight or a plane ride to somewhere where a 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 thank you so much for joining us live now from Fox you'll love it when the Mother Nature and the Earth really put on a show and, uh, I know. a lot of people will be waiting for it thanks for breaking it down this Friday night we appreciate it yeah absolutely thank you Mike thank you all I appreciate it take care and