Live forecast

Over the four days of the conference, each plenary session is followed by a presentation from one of Europe’s established space weather forecast centres, offering the Daily Forecast. The initiative is designed to give participants a closer look at the forecasting process and to illustrate how space weather affects end-users in practice. It also encourages reflection within the community on how to better communicate complex scientific information to operational sectors and the public.

The Live Space Weather Forecast series opened on Monday, October 27, with a presentation by Tiera Laitinen from the Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI), who delivered this week’s aurora forecast. Laitinen began by outlining current solar conditions, noting solar wind speeds of around 400 km/s and a magnetic field strength of 5 nT—figures he described as “extraordinarily ordinary.” With Umeå located just below the auroral oval, these low values are insufficient to generate visible auroras locally. He also provided an overview of the Sun’s conditions in the EUV 193 A wavelength.

According to Laitinen, auroral activity is expected between Tuesday and Wednesday night, triggered by a high-speed solar wind stream emanating from a coronal hole (CH-HSS). A second opportunity for aurora viewing may occur from Wednesday to Thursday night as the CH-HSS continues, with a weaker chance extending into Thursday night. However, by the final night of the conference, the solar stream’s influence is expected to diminish. Laitinen also reminded the audience not to overlook “the tropospheric weather,” noting that cloud cover could still determine whether the aurora can be seen.