{"id":58617,"date":"2025-10-03T18:08:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-03T18:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/58617\/"},"modified":"2025-10-03T18:08:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-03T18:08:08","slug":"why-predicting-the-northern-lights-is-harder-than-it-looks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/58617\/","title":{"rendered":"Why predicting the northern lights is harder than it looks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">That release often causes solar events like solar flares, which, in turn, are often linked to CMEs. When a CME occurs, forecasters input the observational data into a model to create predictions anywhere from one to three days ahead of a possible impact. They further refine the forecast when the solar wind passes through our satellites, and again as the CME impacts Earth. \u201cWe use magnetometers around the globe to get an idea of how strong the magnetic changes are that would relate to a possible geomagnetic storm,\u201d says forecaster <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/astronomyclub.org\/newnhacwp\/shawn-dahl-bio\/\" target=\"_blank\" dir=\"ltr\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Shawn Dahl<\/a>, SWPC\u2019s service coordinator. \u201cOur forecasts can change quite frequently.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Why is aurora forecasting so difficult?<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Imagine trying to forecast a storm that starts 93 million miles away, with only a few cameras to track it. That\u2019s the challenge of aurora prediction.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Most of our space-weather satellites sit directly in the line of sight between the two, offering only a flat, one-angle view of solar eruptions. That makes it hard to gauge their actual size, speed, and direction. \u201cUnfortunately, when one\u2019s pointed straight at us, we can\u2019t actually see its elongation and its extent, and so there\u2019s a set amount of guesswork,\u201d says Kerss.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Even the satellites\u2019 positions work against forecasters. Most space weather satellites sit at Lagrange point 1 (L1), a gravitational saddle about a million miles away from Earth. The most crucial data does not become available until the CME hits this point\u2014but that only gives forecasters about a 15- to 60-minute warning of the CME\u2019s arrival. \u201cWe don\u2019t have instruments lined up every five million miles towards the sun that would allow us to track something. We have to wait until the CME gets so close to Earth,\u201d says Dahl.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Ledvina likens forecasting auroras to predicting a hurricane\u2019s landfall in the U.S. from a few satellite images of the storm when it\u2019s still off the coast of Africa\u2014you only gain certainty when a buoy close to shore registers the storm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"That release often causes solar events like solar flares, which, in turn, are often linked to CMEs. When&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58618,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[273,111,139,69,147],"class_list":{"0":"post-58617","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-new-zealand","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz","12":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58617\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}