Met Office shares Northern Lights forecast with ‘once in a decade’ weather event

The Met Office has announced there may be a a ‘once-in-decade’ solar event related to the Northern Lights.

They’ve shared that NASA has confirmed the onset of a ‘solar maximum’, anticipated to enhance celestial displays over the next 12 months.

This phase, which occurs every 11 years, is marked by an increase in sun spots and solar flares.

The Met Office suggests this could lead to “an ongoing chance of further space weather activity, and ultimately the potential for aurora visibility here on Earth”.

Krista Hammond, Space Weather Manager at the Met Office Space Weather Operations Centre (MOSWOC), has shed light on the current solar cycle. She said: “We’re now in the solar maximum phase, which means there’s more frequent sunspots and solar activity in general.

While it’s not possible to know precisely what this means for individual Earth-directed solar events, it does mean there will likely be further chances of aurora visibility in the UK in the coming months.”