Northern lights to return in Calgary and surrounding areas as space weather becomes more active

Solar activity ramping up more quickly than previously expected, meaning more and sooner opportunities to see aurora borealis.

Calgary and surrounding areas could be in for yet another northern lights display, as space weather becomes more active and solar activity peaks sooner than previously believed.

 

Experts are predicting a G3 geomagnetic storm over the next few days, which has the potential of bringing the auroral oval directly over the Calgary area — although due to light pollution, viewing may be better outside the city.

These storms are caused by streams of plasma and magnetic fields from the sun, which create aurora when they interact with the upper levels of Earth’s atmosphere.

 

“Predicting the timing and intensity of these events can be difficult due to the high number of variables and low number of measurements, but we have fairly good confidence that an Earth-directed component to the fourth in a series of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) will arrive at Earth as early as tonight (Thursday),” said Bryan Brasher, project manager of the Space Weather Prediction Center at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

 

One recent display of northern lights seen in Calgary was brought on by a G3 geomagnetic storm. On two occasions before that, they were triggered by even larger G4 storms.

 

Similar to hurricanes, solar storms are evaluated on a five-point scale. G3 storms or stronger often push the visibility of northern lights south into areas such as Calgary, whereas G1 and G2 storms are often restricted to regions farther north.

 

Brasher added if the CME arrives later than anticipated, the G3 expectation still holds, but this means the aurora may be visible Friday night into early Saturday morning.