Science Snapshots: Space Weather Forecasting is Interesting but Disappointing for Me Personally

Don't mind me, I'm just salty because I was planning to drive out of town and take a look at the Northern Lights tonight, but the forecast has backtracked on who all will be able to see it. Why did I move 5 degrees to the south again?

That doesn't necessarily mean you can't, though! It's actually looking like it's stronger tomorrow night, but if you're in the view line below in North America, you may be in luck if the weather cooperates. Based on the forecast, Europe and Asia seem out of viewing range this time around unless you're in far northern Russia, Iceland, and Greenland (although Greenland is on the North American plate I believe, so...). And if you're in the Southern Hemisphere, you're also out of luck unless you're stationed in Antarctica, based on current predictions for today. And it's winter in Antarctica, so I don't envy you plus it's always dark so you're well aware of whether or not there are dancing lights in the sky.

So to quell my personal disappointment, I'm going to throw some aurora and space weather science at you!

The Northern Lights, or Aurora Borealis, are caused by the solar wind interacting with the Earth's atmosphere. The solar wind isn't a wind as we understand in the air here on Earth, but rather the magnetic field of the sun expanding outward into our solar system. This is caused by plasma on the sun's surface heating so much that even the sun's gravity can't keep it contained, so it pushes out and travels along this magnetic field. When it hits the ionosphere, it's pretty! It's not just us northern hors as there is an Aurora Australis, or Southern Lights, and it's not just us Earthlings, as auroras happen on other planets too!

But enough about pretty lights, because you're really here for the meat of this article, which is space weather forecasting. In the US, that is handled by the same group that handles our weather within a branch called the Space Weather Prediction Center. Weeeeeaaatttheeeerr iiiiiiiiiin spaaaaaaaaaaace!

The sun is the culprit when it comes to making weather on the surface of our planet and it's also the culprit when it comes to making weather in space via the solar wind. The main goal of space weather prediction is to keep an eye out for geomagnetic storms and figure out whether or not they're going to fuck up our radio communications and navigations, either on satellites orbiting the Earth or on the ground. Strong storms can also blast astronauts in spacecraft or the International Space Station with very dangerous radiation. Not just astronauts: even folks in high flying aircraft, including commercial aircraft, at high latitudes. It can also fuck with our power grid here on the surface.

Fortunately for us mere mortals, space meteorologists continuously monitor the sun and provide 3+ day forecasts of solar wind conditions so we can take precautionary measures, like keeping our aircraft at lower latitudes in the flight plans.

Back to the aurora. One of the parameters used to predict the aurora, in addition to the model shown above, is the planetary K-index. A much better use of the letter K than we're used to seeing, the K-index is used to categorize the magnitude, or strength, of a geomagnetic storm. When it's 7 (like was predicted a couple days ago) to 9, your Captain has a chance to see the aurora. When it's 4 like it's predicted to be now, your Captain simply, sadly, will be going to bed early.

And now I leave you all with a mystery. I've seen the aurora twice in my life. Once was in Indiana, a mostly boring green glow way off on the horizon that could've been any old nuclear meltdown. But the other time was incredible, magical, and apparently not possible based on my research.

According to a NASA webpage that even a small child can understand, the auroras are usually green, maybe red and blue. They say sometimes the colors can mix and produce yellow or pink. The color is due to which elements are getting excited by a midnight encounter with the Sun's magnetic lines: red from oxygen, green/blue from nitrogen. The atmosphere is something like 70% nitrogen (remembering off the top of my head from undergrad, so if you want to shoot back with your google-fu that I'm wrong that's on you), hence usually green.

But my hors, I am here to tell you that, defying all scientific explanation, I SAW WHITE AURORA. There shouldn't be a white. But I swear to all the dog gods, it was horizon to horizon, shimmering curtains of pure white. My friend and I went outside to see a meteor shower at like 4am one summer morning. We weren't looking for an impossible aurora. It was just there, and it was terrifying, awesome, and I'm still shook over 20 years later (YES I'M OLD). I swear to cod, it was curtains of pure white clearing the entire sky in like 5 seconds, just ripple after ripple. I cannot find anything online like my experience, either the movement of those lights or the color. The internet says white is a lie. But dammit, white aurora is my bigfoot. I saw it with my own two eyes. It's lost to posterity except in my own mind.

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Learn more about Aurora from NASA, who says white auroras don't exist: https://www.nasa.gov/aurora

Scale of geomagnetic storm/space weather impacts: https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/noaa-scales-explanation

Keep up with Aurora predictions here: https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/communities/aurora-dashboard-experimental