Aurora Watch: Oklahoma has a good shot at Northern Lights on Thursday

UPDATE: view Thursday night's aurora photos from the Muskogee area in this post!

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Taken by Twitter user @Jen_McClure10 in Marlow, OK - May 10th, 2024

Heads-up, Oklahoma! Thursday night may be one of the best chances we have of seeing the Aurora Borealis ("Northern Lights") in years! As the result of a powerful solar flare, a severe geomagnetic storm is predicted for Thursday that could send auroras as far south as Alabama and Texas, or deeper.

Quick, non-scientific layman's explainer: The sun goes in regular periods of activity and inactivity. We are currently in the middle of the solar maximum portion of the current Solar Cycle 25, when the sun is frequent solar storms, flares, and sunspot. The current cycle is much more active than the previous one (2008-2019), and the past few months in particular have had several large X-class solar flares that have sent Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) in Earth's direction that have, in turn, produced geomagnetic storms with auroras sighted as far south as Arizona and Alabama. 

I became enthralled with spaceweather back in 2003, the maximum year of Solar Cycle 23 (1996-2008). October and November 2003 were extremely active, with the four of the top ten largest flares recorded (including the biggest at ~X45).

Anyway, back to the main thing. A long X1.8-class solar flare ejected a fast-moving CME toward Earth, which will be arriving on Thursday at some point. A severe G4-class geomagnetic storm is predicted for Thursday evening. From NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center:

Geomagnetic storms generally don't have much effect on day-to-day living, but severe ones can cause high- and low-frequency radio blackouts, power grid problems (a geomagnetic storm knocked Quebec's entire grid offline for 9 nine hours in 1989), radiation exposure on high-latitude flights and spacecraft, satellites and GPS can have problems, et cetera. Here's a run-down of risks at different storm classes.

Some key websites to watch:

• SpaceWeather.com (my personal favorite since 2003)
• SpaceWeatherLive.com
• NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center
• a sub-page on their site, "Space Weather Enthusiasts Dashboard"

Some posts from Twitter with information about the incoming CME and aurora viewing tips:

1. Link to full thread in case tweets don't embed properly. EDIT: this appears to be displaying on mobile correctly (at least some of the time), but might not on desktop browsers. Use the link instead if it won't display.

2. The event looks to last into the 11th with the potential for G4 conditions. NOAA in their forecast discussion also calls for G5 conditions possible which could extend or make aurora viewing easier throughout the world. pic.twitter.com/vq2q4fnFgT

— Chris Wicklund Auroras (@Wicky_dubs_WX) October 9, 2024

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4. Impacts mentioned above could hamper hurricane relief and disaster relief effort that starlink satellites are currently using. Pay attention to the forecast and for potential outages.

— Chris Wicklund Auroras (@Wicky_dubs_WX) October 9, 2024

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6. My only concern with this CME Impact is it came from the Northern Hemisphere of the Sun which I am unsure if major eruptions from northern spots will have predominantly +BZ. Our main shows from 2024 so far have been from sunspot regions in the Southern Hemisphere. See AR3664… pic.twitter.com/4xg7RmuRcZ

— Chris Wicklund Auroras (@Wicky_dubs_WX) October 9, 2024

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7. Space weather will change on a dime. Planning for it is usually difficult. Pay attention to forecasters, live cameras and fluctuations in data for potential aurora chances in middle latitudes and potentially low latitudes. Look North, Drive North and cameras charged.

— Chris Wicklund Auroras (@Wicky_dubs_WX) October 9, 2024

5. Link to full thread in case tweets don't embed properly.

Starting off, we're going to use a Light Pollution Map to identify your current location, and where you may need to go to get out of light polluted areas.

- https://t.co/BL2bhKVuRs

For me, since I live in the Kansas City metropolitan area, I would want to go northeast to get… pic.twitter.com/9Xi0yOIoIK

— Hunter Hurley (@hunterhurleywx) October 9, 2024

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If you're having trouble finding a spot, you can use Google Maps street viewer to make finding locations a little more helpful. I've used it dozens of times to mark flat terrain with little to no northward obstructions.

(4/5) pic.twitter.com/dGizPFehwt

— Hunter Hurley (@hunterhurleywx) October 9, 2024

7. a mega-thread worth clicking through:

This will be a long thread. A synposis will be sent to my email list via an aurora alert summarizing all the activity going on. You will also get my 60+ page aurora chasing e-book for free which is the highest-rated aurora e-book online. Sign up: https://t.co/PeqvtUPOSb pic.twitter.com/heBDtO9Ste

— Vincent Ledvina (@Vincent_Ledvina) October 9, 2024

I'm trying to embed a Twitter list of accounts that specialize in spaceweather and auroras, but this might not work. If it displays below, good, but if not, you can also view the feed here.

Spaceweather/Aurora

Stay tuned for more updates!