Keep an eye out tonight for aurora!

A strong CME (Coronal Mass Ejection) left the sun around Tuesday afternoon, and it’s looking like it’ll create widespread aurora over the next 2 to 3 nights.

Here are some tables for the aurora:

Tonight

Time	Forecasted probability of aurora	Forecasted cloudiness
Sunset – 9 pm	70%	Partly cloudy
9 pm – Midnight	90%	Partly cloudy
Midnight – 3 am	50%	Partly cloudy
3 am – 6am	30%	Partly cloudy
6 am – Sunrise	30%	Partly cloudy

Tomorrow night

Time	Forecasted probability of aurora	Forecasted cloudiness
Sunset – 9 pm	70%	Mostly cloudy
9 pm – Midnight	70%	Partly cloudy
Midnight – 3 am	50%	Partly cloudy
3 am – 6am	50%	Mostly clear
6 am – Sunrise	50%	Mostly clear

It seems like the best chance of any will be tonight, specifically late in the evening. After midnight aurora is still very possible, but it’s definitely not as probable. Tomorrow night has lower chances for the evening but higher overnight. This means, paired with low cloudiness, that we might see the best aurora tomorrow night, even though there’s a lower overall chance of it.

If you want to know what to watch for if you’re really hoping to see some aurora, then consult the boxes below.

Links:

1. https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/communities/aurora-dashboard-experimental
2. https://www.aurorawatch.ca/component/option,com_frontpage/Itemid,1/
3. https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/ace-real-time-solar-wind

The first links tells you about some basic conditions.

At the top you have a panel that says “Space Weather Conditions”. Under “Latest Observed” if the G box says anything that isn’t none, that means there’s an >50% chance of aurora right now. If you scroll down a bit, there’s a panel that says “Where will the aurora be in the next few minutes?”. You’re going to want to look at the Northern Hemisphere section. Click the play button, and wait for it to load. Once it has played, you will be able to see where aurora has the highest chance of being right now. If it looks like we have yellow, orange, red, of green that could change or is changing to yellow, that means there is a good chance of aurora in the next little while. (~30 mins) Going down a little bit more, under “What is driving the aurora?” there is a box that says “Planetary K index” If you see the bars there going up, that means that the chance of aurora is increasing. If they’re going down, it’s decreasing. If the rightmost bar is extending beyond 4, that means the aurora is considered active for our area. Anything beyond 6 is considered very active.

The second link is much simpler. All you really need to know about it is that the percentage right at the top is the probability of aurora in Edmonton at this exact moment.

For the third link:

• On the option that says a bunch of unnecessary stuff and then EPAMp in brackets, anything going up means aurora is more active.
• On the magnetic field option, if the yellow bar is exceeding +/- 20, and the white and red bars are going above 20, the aurora is becoming more active.
• Finally, on the second SWEPAM option, if the yellow bar is going above 800, and there is more instability than normal in the red bar, the aurora is also becoming more active.