Northern Lights could be ‘more intense than normal this week’, space weather expert says

Solar flares could provide an opportunity to admire this phenomenon in the French sky. But it will be less significant than on May 10 and you will have to be patient, as a specialist explains to franceinfo.

What could be better than observing the sky on a beautiful summer evening? The occurrence of solar flares this week could be the occasion, from Tuesday, July 30, to admire the northern lights in the sky, caused by these explosions of energetic particles and magnetic fields coming from the sun. Will the phenomenon be comparable to the solar storm at the beginning of May? ? How, where and when to benefit from it? Franceinfo asked the question to Olivier Katz, space weather forecaster at the Operational Center for Space Weather in the Alps, and founding member of the AurorAlpes association, which works to transmit scientific knowledge.

Franceinfo: Could you first enlighten us on this phenomenon?

Olivier Katz: During solar flares, it is not the sun ejecting matter, but part of its magnetic field carrying matter into space. This solar magnetic field will then meet that of the Earth. If they are oriented in the same way, they will repel each other, like two magnets. The two magnetic fields must be reversed for them to attract each other and for us to be able to enjoy the show. But we can’t know that before. But there is a chance to have more intense than normal northern lights this week, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

Will the phenomenon be as intense as on May 10, when a solar storm caused fascinating northern lights?

No. Even if these auroras are potentially visible from France, the event will not be comparable to that of May 10. SIf we ever see something, it could correspond to a luminous grayish spot, visible to the naked eye, at the horizon level, to the north. photo, with 4 to 7 seconds of pause, we will be able to see reddish pillars appear.

What are the ideal conditions to admire the Northern Lights?

You need to be in a place where the weather is nice and outside of a city, to avoid light pollution. The conditions that we cannot anticipate the solar flares themselves. We cannot predict with certainty the time at which the material ejected by the sun will arrive at Earth level. If it is at noon, there is no chance of seeing the northern lights in the evening, because the geomagnetic storm will have passed. So we must hope that it will happen in the early evening.

Despite the uncertainty of the outcome, is it worth going out in the hope of seeing one?

It is an interesting event, but you have to be motivated to go out and wait because it can last a minute or two hours and you can spend the evening outside without seeing anything at all. But it can occupy our summer evenings! It gets you out of the city and it is an opportunity to see Perseids – shooting stars – and the Milky Way. The best way to know if the Northern Lights are going to occur is to follow specialized sites, such as the account of the Operational Center for Space Meteorology of the Alps on X, which will alert before the early evening to say whether to go out to look at the sky.