08/01/2026
Too rainy in my neck of the woods, but if you live above the yellow line there is hope tonight!
AURORA ALERT: NOAA has a G2 / moderate geomagnetic storm watch up for the August 2 UTC day, which for North America starts tonight, Saturday August 1. The northern lights could come down into the northern U.S. and southern Canada tonight into early Sunday morning.
I'm posting the red donut of doom for attention. It shows only VERY roughly how far south aurora might reach, so please don't read it as a promise.
The honest part first: this one is barely a hit. On July 30, sunspot region AR 4492 fired an M1.9 flare from near the Sun's western edge and launched a CME, a sun sneeze with a magnetic field wound up inside it. Most models have that cloud passing west and north of us, and the HUXt ensemble gives it about a 64% chance of reaching Earth at all.
NOAA has the arrival around 02:00 UT August 2, which is 10 PM Eastern, 9 PM Central, 8 PM Mountain, 7 PM Pacific tonight. HUXt says roughly seven hours later. Everything here carries at least +/- 7 hours of uncertainty, so the real window is tonight through Sunday dawn. Hurry up and wait.
How strong depends on how much of the cloud's flank we clip and the magnetic orientation of the CME when it arrives, and we can't know either one in advance. Expect nothing and be pleasantly surprised if it shows up. Expectation is the thief of joy, and that goes double in space weather.
Best odds run along the U.S.-Canada border. Substorms are the whole game: brief 15-30 minute flare-ups that send the aurora tall and bright so it reaches much farther south, often as red glow on the horizon. If you step outside and see nothing, don't pack up.
Two things working against us tonight: Michigan and the Northeast look cloudy, and the moon is a waning gibbous at 88% that's up for basically the whole dark window. Face north and you'll at least have it behind you.
Skip the Kp forecast and your aurora app. Watch the solar wind and the GOES magnetometers instead. Everything you need is here:
Sign up for future aurora alerts:
https://go.theauroraguy.com/alerts
Substorm practical guide: https://theauroraguy.com/blogs/blog/a-practical-substorm-guide
Chasing wisely, why Kp and apps mislead: https://theauroraguy.com/blogs/blog/top-five-low-value-practices-to-avoid-aurora-chasing
GOES magnetometer tutorial: https://theauroraguy.com/blogs/blog/how-to-use-the-goes-magnetometers-to-master-aurora-chasing
100+ live aurora webcams: https://theauroraguy.com/pages/webcams
I sent the full breakdown to my email subscribers this morning, free of charge, with all the model runs and annotated graphics.
Fingers and toes crossed. A non-event is always possible with a glancing blow like this, but it's okay to hope for the best. Clear skies!
