This is an in-depth Met Office UK Weather forecast for the next week and beyond. More showers but with some warm sunshine in between we also take a peek at what caused the beautiful aurora visible across much of the UK last Friday. Bringing you this deep dive is Met Office meteorologist Alex Deakin.
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00:00 Welcome along to this week's Met Office Deep Dive.
00:03 This week we're going into deep space.
00:05 OK, maybe not deep space, but we are going to be talking space weather and in particular
00:12 what happened on Friday nights with the Aurora.
00:14 And we do have a very special guest.
00:17 Before that, obviously, we'll be talking about things a little closer to ground and with
00:22 the weather for the next few days, which is looking showery, although perhaps not quite
00:27 as angry as the showers were on Sunday.
00:28 More on that in a moment as well.
00:31 My name is Alex Deakin.
00:32 I'm a meteorologist here at the Met Office headquarters.
00:36 Thank you for watching.
00:37 Thank you for all your comments.
00:39 If you could hit the like button, that would be doing us a big favor as well.
00:42 And don't forget to share this with other MET heads.
00:45 This is the deep dive where we go in depth into some meteorological content and chat
00:52 and take a closer look at something that's been hitting the news or could hit the news
00:56 in the next few days.
00:59 Welcome along.
01:00 As I said, please, please do keep those comments coming along.
01:02 I'll be in the chat at about half past four this afternoon.
01:05 But if you're watching after that, don't worry, we'll still read all of your comments and
01:09 suggestions.
01:10 OK, let's take a look at what's been going on.
01:13 A beautiful swirl there on the satellite image heralding something of a change to our weather.
01:18 You can see that swirl there, that area of low pressure that's moved in, bringing many
01:22 of us a bit of a damp day on Tuesday.
01:25 It was a soggy whole day in Devon, where I am on Monday from this weather system that
01:30 has been moving its way slowly in.
01:32 But first up, let's just rewind the clock to the weekend because Saturday was a warm
01:39 and sunny day for many.
01:41 And then we saw a bit of a change.
01:43 Still warm and sunny for quite a few of us on Sunday.
01:46 But let's just zoom in a little bit and take out these little lumpy looking clouds that
01:52 developed over Wales and pushed up towards northwest England.
01:55 Follow those for the next couple of hours.
01:57 You can see the storms blossoming there.
01:59 That was the clutch of thunderstorms that dropped a lot of rain in a short space of
02:04 time.
02:05 Let's zoom in a little bit further there.
02:06 The angry looking picture there on the radar, the really bright colors, large hailstones
02:12 mixed in with that as well.
02:14 And some very, very heavy rain indeed.
02:18 And I can actually show you some footage of that.
02:20 You've probably seen this across social media, these images from from TikTok of Old Trafford,
02:26 the Theatre of Dreams, Theatre of Sogginess turned into a flood and a waterfall falling
02:31 off the roof.
02:32 This was as the game ended between United and Arsenal.
02:37 The groundsman here recording 27 millimeters of rain in 18 minutes.
02:45 27 millimeters of rain, so just over an inch in 18 minutes.
02:50 For context, the groundsman for the whole of last May here recorded only 29 millimeters
02:58 of rain.
02:59 So 29 millimeters of rain last May in 18 minutes, 27 millimeters of rain.
03:05 So not surprising it caused that flooding that you probably saw on social media.
03:08 As I said, those storms also generating some heavy, heavy downpours in the area, not just
03:14 across the Manchester area, but also through parts of Western Scotland.
03:22 Line of angry looking rain there that then moved its way across Scotland and Northern
03:26 England, starting off a little bit earlier into parts of Wales as well.
03:29 You can see the storms brewing.
03:30 Actually, they started just off the north coast of Devon and Cornwall there before they
03:34 headed their way northwards.
03:37 So that's what happened on Sunday.
03:38 Let's get a little bit further out and catch up with where we are now.
03:44 Take the radar off.
03:46 Let's zoom out a little bit because we've already seen this.
03:49 Low pressure.
03:52 You can see the swirl there, beautiful little swirl.
03:54 That is low pressure and that's what's dominating our weather at the moment.
03:58 In particular, this weather front lying across eastern areas.
04:01 It was that front that was lying across the southwest yesterday.
04:06 Gave me a very, very soggy.
04:07 Get the jet stream off for now.
04:08 It gave me a very soggy cycle home from work yesterday.
04:12 That rain has only been slowly moving because the lows kind of static down to the southwest.
04:16 The weather fronts are very slow moving as well.
04:19 Not producing the torrential rain of yesterday, but if you've been stuck under that over eastern
04:23 England, it has been very soggy indeed.
04:26 Why is everything slow moving?
04:28 Well, let's zoom out further.
04:30 I'll put the jet stream back on and you can see we've got this trough, this big dip in
04:35 the jet stream.
04:37 Just dipping down to the south.
04:38 It's not particularly strong.
04:39 It's not particularly active, but it's kind of in this trough and that's the breeding
04:44 ground for low pressure.
04:45 It just kind of stays in the base of this trough and it mills around.
04:48 Fast forward 24 hours, not a lot has changed.
04:51 You've still got that dip in the jet stream.
04:53 You've still got that low pressure.
04:55 Very slowly it is edging away and if we move forward to Friday, the jet stream is now dipping
05:03 to the south.
05:04 It's not quite as dippy, if you see what I mean, and it's weaker as well.
05:09 You can't really see that pink core anymore.
05:12 It's a fairly weak jet stream, so it's not really doing much.
05:15 That low pressure is just milling around and it's filling.
05:18 It's what we call filling.
05:19 Let's take the jet stream off, put the rewind and you can see that at the moment, if you
05:23 come back to here now, zoom in a little bit, you can see quite a few isobars in the giant.
05:28 It's quite breezy around the center of the low, but over the course of the next couple
05:32 of days, that low fills.
05:35 The isobars are spacing out on it, so the winds are weakening.
05:38 This is what we call a flabby old pressure pattern.
05:41 There's not a lot of isobars.
05:43 There's not a lot of movement.
05:45 Everything is kind of just stagnating.
05:47 You end up kind of in a weather no man's land.
05:51 That's what's happening through the rest of this week.
05:54 That low is kind of just filling and disappearing.
05:57 Another little low is kind of trying to form over the near continent.
06:01 That's going to generate some big thunderstorms here.
06:03 But for us, it just means we're likely to see some warm sunshine, but also quite a few
06:09 showers and particularly where this old weather front is lying.
06:11 That is going to generate a bit more in the way of thick cloud and more outbreaks of rain
06:15 through Thursday and Friday across some central areas.
06:17 But elsewhere, we've got this flabby old weather pattern, low pressure.
06:22 So it's going to be a mixture of sunshine and crucially, slow moving showers.
06:26 So the showers were going to meander around, which means that between the showers, there'll
06:30 be some fine weather.
06:31 There will be some sunshine.
06:32 But if you get caught in a shower, it could end up being quite slow moving and drop quite
06:36 a bit of rain.
06:37 So that's really the forecast for the next few days, actually, even including the weekend,
06:41 a mixture of sunshine and showers.
06:43 But we are at the time of year.
06:45 We've had some warmer air drifting up.
06:47 We're at the time of year where the sun's got a bit of welly to it, a bit of power to
06:50 it.
06:51 So we will see some warmth.
06:52 We'll feel some warmth when the sun is out.
06:54 Temperatures mostly this week can be a little bit above average for the time of year.
06:59 One other thing that's going to be a feature of the weather this week, if we just, I'll
07:02 just put the winds on.
07:03 So we've looked at the jet stream.
07:05 These are the surface winds.
07:07 So notice where they're coming from around this low pressure.
07:10 They're fairly light, but there is a bit of a breeze there coming in from the North Sea.
07:14 And that is crucial.
07:15 That is fairly typical at this time of year, of course, as well.
07:18 In May, we often see these easterly winds and that can generate mist and low cloud.
07:24 And that's what we're going to see over the next couple of days.
07:26 So that's Friday.
07:27 But if we rewind it to Thursday, Wednesday, you can still see that with a low down here
07:33 all the while the flow, the breeze is coming in from the North Sea.
07:38 That's important because it is likely then to generate cloud.
07:41 So that's where we are at the moment.
07:42 That's the weather front bringing the outbreaks of rain.
07:44 But let's put the cloud cover on because there's a lot of cloud on the weather front, obviously.
07:49 But actually, if we fast forward, just pause it there.
07:54 Notice this thinner layer of cloud.
07:57 Zoom in a bit because you can't see it very well.
08:00 With the winds coming in from the North Sea, just generating a lot of mist and low cloud.
08:05 Why is that?
08:06 Well, if we take a look at the sea surface temperatures at the moment, the sea surface
08:12 temperatures are just starting to rise again.
08:15 They reach their nadir in March, April time.
08:17 So that's when they're at their lowest this time of year.
08:20 They are just starting to come up, but it's still pretty chilly.
08:22 If you've been in the North Sea, temperatures in the sea, 9, 10 Celsius.
08:26 Further south, actually temperatures here in the sea a little bit above average for
08:30 the time of year, 12, maybe even 13 down towards the Isles of Scilly.
08:34 But single digits here, so cold sea, that wind bringing the air over the sea is going
08:41 to cool, it's going to condense, and that forms the mist and the low cloud that we are
08:45 going to see, particularly in this part of the world.
08:49 Happens pretty frequently in May in particular, because you get these slow moving weather
08:53 patterns, because there's not a lot of power to the jet stream.
08:56 So you're more likely to get easterly winds, and you're more likely to generate with those
09:01 colder sea surface temperatures, the mist and muck along the East Coast.
09:05 So we're going to see more and more of that, particularly as we go through the next 24
09:09 hours, the mist and low cloud clinging to parts of the East Coast.
09:13 Probably a bit overdone here in the computer model forecast, but parts of the East Coast
09:16 are going to be murky.
09:18 That's called fret along the coast of North East England.
09:20 It's called har up here in eastern parts of Scotland.
09:24 It's the same thing, but it's called fret down there.
09:26 It's called har up there.
09:27 And this is the time of year when you get it quite a bit.
09:30 And that's going to be a feature of the weather.
09:31 And it will have an impact on the temperatures on the East Coast of Scotland as well.
09:35 Whereas, Western Scotland doing the best for temperatures over the next few days.
09:41 I talked about it being a little bit warmer than average, generally speaking, over the
09:45 next few days.
09:46 If you're stuck under that weather front, it's going to feel cool.
09:49 But look at that, for example, 19, 20 degrees in most places.
09:52 But zoom into that East Coast.
09:54 Well, 15, 14 at best.
09:57 And if that mist does stick right on the coast itself, it's more likely going to be closer
10:01 to the sea surface temperature.
10:02 You're going to struggle to get much above 10, 11, 12 Celsius.
10:05 So, yes, these towns and cities may get up to the teens, but the coast itself closer
10:09 to, you know, say 11 or 12 at best.
10:12 Whereas, Glasgow to 20 degrees.
10:14 And there's a little warm spot up there.
10:16 I'm just going to put the temperatures next few days when you compare them to average.
10:21 So these are the temperatures for this is for today compared to average.
10:26 That greeny color there is close to average plus or minus 3 Celsius.
10:31 Anything orangey red is above average.
10:32 Anything blue is below average.
10:34 Let's fast forward to tomorrow because look at this.
10:37 Zooming in across Scotland, that is going to be the warmest place.
10:41 And in particular here along the Murray Firth.
10:44 You can see those winds are coming in here.
10:46 The coastal strip temperatures close to average on the coast because of that cooling effect
10:51 of the har and the breeze.
10:54 Winds are going to bounce over the mountains and in this little pocket here may well be
10:57 some lovely sunshine and temperatures here in that darker red could well be 9 degrees
11:03 above average.
11:04 24, 25 is possible along the Murray Firth tomorrow and other parts of northern Scotland
11:09 can be well above average also.
11:11 So that's going to be the warmest part of the world for the next couple of days because
11:14 of the wind direction.
11:16 Cooling effect on the coast goes up over the mountains.
11:18 Something called the firn effect.
11:20 We've covered that before in the deep dive means that on the other side of the mountains
11:24 the air is that much warmer.
11:26 Fast forward to Friday and it's a similar story again.
11:30 We've still got that warmth across parts of northern Scotland.
11:33 The exact wind direction will be crucial, but that is the warmest parts of the UK when
11:38 compared to average may warm up a little bit further south as well.
11:41 But for most places temperatures close to average.
11:44 But of course, as I said, there is some welly in the sun, so it does feel a little bit warmer
11:48 over the course of the next few days and into the weekend.
11:52 Starts just a hint at things getting a little bit colder.
11:55 Quite a bit of uncertainty in the longer range forecast.
11:58 Just the position of where this low is or where the other low is out to the east.
12:03 Things are going to change, but only slowly.
12:07 As we head towards the weekend, higher pressure is trying to topple in.
12:15 Low pressures situated to the east.
12:17 Again, the isobar is well spaced out.
12:19 We haven't got much forcing.
12:20 There's not much power to shift things from the jet stream.
12:24 So it's all just very slow moving and the position of that low will have an impact.
12:28 It's basically going to still be a mixture of sunshine and showers as we head into the
12:32 weekend.
12:33 So sticking on Saturday with the influence of higher pressure further north, we probably
12:38 not see too many showers across the north on Sunday.
12:40 The low pressure further south, that's where we're most likely to see some heavy showers
12:44 into Sunday.
12:45 So, yeah, staying showery, but hit and miss downpours, mist and low cloud on the east
12:50 coast, but feeling quite warm in the sunshine.
12:53 Aidan will have more on that in the 10-day trend tomorrow.
12:57 He'll also have more on this.
12:59 We often show these charts in the 10-day trend.
13:01 This is the pressure trend for the next couple of weeks.
13:06 Dates going forward along the top.
13:08 Previous computer model runs going along the side.
13:11 Blue means that low pressure is dominating across the UK, and that's what we've got for
13:15 the next two or three days.
13:16 But then it goes green, which means near, not really sure, not low, not high.
13:20 It's just that flabby pressure pattern that I talked about earlier.
13:24 That's where we are through the weekend, but it's still going to be showery.
13:28 There are hints.
13:29 I mean, you look at this and think, wow, it's quite a strong signal that we're going to
13:32 see the pinks take it, or the pinks are taking over.
13:35 And pink means, well, red means high pressure.
13:37 The fact that it's pink means that it's quite a weak signal.
13:41 There are some signs of higher pressure, but it is far from nailed on.
13:45 It is just slightly more likely than not that high pressure is going to come in.
13:50 But we can't promise anything.
13:51 There's not a strong signal, and that is often the case at this time of year because it's
13:55 May, because there's not a lot of contrast between the North Pole and the equator.
14:00 There's not a lot of power in the jet stream.
14:02 So yeah, there's always a bit more uncertainty than usual at this stage.
14:05 So there's been a bit of chatter in the press about high pressure returning.
14:09 We can't really talk about that at this stage.
14:11 There are a few signals at the moment, but it is just a pretty weak signal.
14:15 And I want to show you one more thing to kind of back that up.
14:19 This is what I call the confidence-o-meter.
14:23 When you run the model many times, you get an ensemble forecast, lots of different output,
14:27 and it checks those and how consistent, internally consistent, they all are.
14:31 When they're reasonably consistent, we can have confidence in the forecast, and that's
14:35 when it goes green.
14:36 However, you'll notice for the longer range forecast, we're pretty much entirely in the
14:41 red.
14:42 So the forecast confidence, how confident we are in the longer range, is lower than
14:47 average dates going forward along the bottom there.
14:50 So yes, there are some suggestions from computer models that higher pressure may return, but
14:54 at the moment, it looks weak and the signal looks weak as well.
14:57 So I think it's one of those ones to stay tuned to the forecasts.
15:01 And of course, Aiden will have more on that in the 10-day trend tomorrow.
15:06 Right.
15:07 We talked about the thunderstorms, talked about the weather.
15:11 Let's talk about something even more exciting that happened last Friday.
15:15 Were you lucky enough to catch the aurora borealis?
15:19 Put on quite a show last Friday night.
15:22 It is time to go to Space Weather Expert.
15:26 Welcome along to Krista.
15:29 Krista Hammond is back because it's not the first time you've been on the Deep Dive, is
15:32 it?
15:33 No, I was here a couple of months ago just talking about the potential that we have for
15:36 space weather.
15:37 And then this weekend, we've seen it.
15:38 Now it's happened.
15:39 What a forecast.
15:40 Well, thank you for joining.
15:41 Thank you.
15:47 You were on with Alex Burkill a couple of months ago talking about space weather.
15:52 Do you want to just give us an overview of what your role is here at the Met Office?
15:56 Yes.
15:57 I work as part of the Met Office Space Weather Programme.
16:00 I work with different industries, different areas, helping them understand what the impacts
16:05 would be of space weather on their operations.
16:07 As well as, you know, causing the beautiful aurora that we get in the most extreme events
16:13 that can cause damage to infrastructure and technology that we rely on day to day.
16:17 So that's why here at the Met Office we have a space weather department because of the
16:21 impacts that space weather has on our everyday things that we rely on so heavily.
16:26 But I guess the main focus for you over recent days has been the aurora or the reasons behind
16:33 the aurora, perhaps.
16:34 And that must have generated quite a lot of interest.
16:37 It certainly did.
16:38 You know, for me personally as well, that's the first time I've seen them too.
16:40 So yeah, it was.
16:41 And to have an event which was, you know, able to affect the whole of the UK.
16:46 So, you know, we were getting reports down here in Devon, across the south coast, people
16:50 were able to see the aurora.
16:51 So that's certainly taken up the nation's interest over the last couple of days.
16:55 Absolutely.
16:56 Now, we could stand here and show lots and lots of beautiful pictures of the aurora,
16:59 but you've all seen those.
17:00 If not, where on earth have you been?
17:02 I've been across social media.
17:04 Everyone seems to see the aurora.
17:05 So we're not here to discuss the beautiful, pretty pictures.
17:08 This is the deep dive.
17:09 So we're going to go and discuss why it happened and take a quick look back, starting with
17:15 how they all start, I guess, the big ball thing in the sky, which most of us saw for
17:20 the first time a long time on Saturday because it was a cracking day of sunshine.
17:24 But even before Saturday, you were looking at it because this is the culprit, right?
17:29 That's right.
17:30 To understand the aurora, we need to understand space weather, and that is driven by activity
17:34 on the sun.
17:35 So here is the sun.
17:37 And it is indeed this area here, this enormous sunspot area.
17:40 For context, that's about 15 times the size of the earth.
17:43 That spot?
17:44 This big here?
17:45 Yeah.
17:46 Wow.
17:47 15 times the size of the earth.
17:48 Yeah.
17:49 There were reports that people who still had their glasses from the solar eclipse could
17:51 put them on and they could actually see this.
17:53 So yeah, that's how large the sunspot region was.
17:56 Incredible.
17:57 So we've been monitoring that at the Met Office Space Weather Operations Center because it
18:01 was growing in size, it was growing in complexity, and it was releasing a lot of solar flares.
18:06 So those are bursts of electromagnetic energy.
18:09 And they themselves can cause degradation to high frequency communications, which the
18:14 likes of the aviation industry use for communicating.
18:17 But what we're also looking at is when we see a solar flare, it can also be an indication
18:22 that we were also having a coronal mass ejection leave the sun.
18:26 So they're not the same thing, a solar flare and coronal mass ejection not always the same
18:29 thing.
18:30 They're not.
18:31 They originate at the same time from the same area, but they're fundamentally different.
18:35 Solar flares are eruptions of electromagnetic energy.
18:38 After we see them occur on the sun, the impacts are felt immediately on earth.
18:42 Those are traveling at a speed of light.
18:45 Coronal mass ejections, these are eruptions of charged matter of plasma from the sun.
18:50 Particles.
18:51 That's right, particles.
18:52 So yeah, that leaves the sun and because it's mass, it takes longer to arrive.
18:56 So several days after they leave the sun, we can feel the impacts on earth.
19:01 Okay, so that's the difference.
19:03 That's the difference.
19:04 That's what you were monitoring last week.
19:05 Yep.
19:06 How long does a sunspot last even?
19:10 When did you spot this spot?
19:12 So how you view them is they sort of, we spot all the spots.
19:17 What happens is as we rotate and the sun rotates, we see them move across the surface of the
19:22 sun.
19:23 So the sun actually, we saw rotate onto the surface of the sun.
19:26 So it'd been there for a solid week or so before it gets into this position.
19:29 Just the other side, right?
19:30 Yeah.
19:31 Yeah.
19:32 So it's as it's sort of growing as it moves across the sun and we're seeing all these
19:34 solar flares and we're starting to see these coronal mass ejections leave the sun.
19:38 And it was still getting bigger, still getting more complex.
19:40 That's when we really started to take notice.
19:42 Wow.
19:43 And can you describe what causes them?
19:47 It's the magnetic interactions of the sun and the surface and it's all...
19:51 Yeah, that's where we've got tightly wrapped magnetic fields.
19:54 So where we've got those sort of really strong magnetic fields tightly interacted, it ends
19:59 up that the surface of the sun there is slightly cooler than the surrounding areas, which is
20:03 why we see them as darker than the rest of the sun.
20:06 Right.
20:07 Okay.
20:08 And of course the timing of where it is will then impact where the stuff comes out and
20:13 goes.
20:14 I'm using technical terms here.
20:15 Where the coronal mass ejection goes, because if it was on the other side of the sun, it
20:19 wouldn't impact us, presumably.
20:21 Actually, when it's along here, that's when if something leaves the sun while it's on
20:25 this side, it's less likely to sort of...
20:28 As matter leaves the sun, because we're spinning in respect to the sun.
20:32 But if you picture it almost like a garden sprinkler, when water leaves the sprinkler,
20:38 it leaves at a right angle.
20:40 If you were to look at it from above, it looks like it's spinning round.
20:42 So it kind of works the same with the sun, so that the solar wind that leaves the sun
20:47 on that side has a tendency to miss us, whereas when it comes around here, it's in a much
20:52 better position for anything which leaves to be able to hit the earth.
20:55 Okay.
20:56 Now we've got something even more remarkable to show now, because this is actually happening,
21:00 right?
21:01 This is right.
21:02 This is the coronal mass ejections as we saw them leave the sun.
21:05 And sometimes from a sunspot, you might get a couple of CMEs leaving.
21:10 From this one, we saw multiple CMEs.
21:12 Each of these little flashes is a coronal mass ejection, the sun spewing out particles
21:17 into space.
21:18 Absolutely.
21:19 And because we see it coming out like this, you can see it almost like a halo.
21:21 That means that they are directly, directing exactly towards earth.
21:25 Because it's, ah, right.
21:26 So where are we looking?
21:27 Where are we looking from?
21:31 So this is looking straight on at the sun.
21:34 From level with the earth?
21:35 Yeah, yeah, that's right.
21:36 Right, right.
21:37 So this satellite is just in front of the earth, looking at the sun.
21:40 Wow.
21:41 So we're looking at this face on.
21:42 And each of these, how long is this time frame?
21:46 So you're getting like, I mean, this is moving quite quickly.
21:48 But to give you, yeah, there's probably, I think in this, this image, just maybe five
21:53 over the course of 24, 48 hours.
21:55 Wow.
21:56 So it was quite a lot in a very short period of time.
21:58 That's unusual.
21:59 Yeah, that is the volume of CMEs that we got one after the other that led to the impacts
22:03 that we saw over the weekend in terms of the geomagnetic storming once they arrived at
22:07 earth.
22:08 So the fact that there was a number of them in a short space of time, but all created
22:11 by that same sunspot.
22:12 Yeah, that's right.
22:13 So all coming from the same place.
22:15 Each CME in itself is fairly unremarkable, but when you have one and then the other,
22:19 and there's this charged plasma just getting released from the sun, some caught up with
22:23 the CME that had left before them.
22:26 And then you sort of get this amplified effect of each one in isolation might not have done
22:31 too much damage, but as you start to get more and more, that's when you start to see the
22:35 impacts.
22:36 Wow.
22:37 Incredible.
22:38 So that's actually happening last, when did, when did that, was that last Friday morning?
22:41 That would have been last Thursday and Friday.
22:44 Last Thursday and Friday.
22:45 So over that period.
22:46 And then we got the picture.
22:47 Because the ultimate day or so to arrive at earth, a couple of days to get here.
22:50 Right.
22:51 We're getting even more funky now, even more colours.
22:53 What are we looking at here?
22:55 This is getting really technical now.
22:56 Once our MOSWalk forecasters or space weather forecasters, they've seen those CMEs leave
23:00 the sun, they can model them to see how fast they're going, where they originated from,
23:05 spoiler alert, it was the enormous sunspot.
23:07 And what direction it was.
23:08 Just to double check, it was that one.
23:09 Definitely there.
23:10 The big black spot.
23:11 That's where it got.
23:12 Not the little one in the corner.
23:16 Once they know this information, they can plug these parameters into models.
23:20 So similar to how we have weather models, you know, sort of assess the arrival time
23:24 of storms.
23:25 We can assess the arrival time of geomagnetic storms.
23:29 So what we have here, just to point this out, is in the centre, that is the sun.
23:33 And just on the right hand side there, that's the earth.
23:36 And the spirals that you see coming out is the normal solar wind.
23:39 So as I was saying, they don't come sort of straight out.
23:41 They have that spiral because there's this rotational effect.
23:43 Because everything's rotating round, right, like a...
23:45 There you've got your garden hose spewing out.
23:48 Yep, there we are.
23:49 So that's the solar wind going round like that.
23:51 And then you've got these, which are the model coronal mass ejections.
23:55 That's it.
23:56 That's the plasma.
23:57 That's the particles.
23:58 And you can see in the early frames, there's quite a few coming out very close to the sun.
24:01 And it's kind of, some of them catch up with each other.
24:03 There's a bit of a gap.
24:05 There's another CME.
24:06 And it was just one after the other that then impacts it on the horizon.
24:09 So this is pretty...
24:10 That's impressive, right?
24:11 You don't see that very often.
24:12 No, that's it.
24:13 It's the pure volume of it.
24:14 And we were right in the firing line.
24:16 Right in the firing line.
24:17 So if the earth had been over here, we wouldn't have seen it.
24:19 I was...
24:20 I knew someone was going to do that.
24:22 My clumsy fingers.
24:24 So if the earth had been this side, then we wouldn't have even noticed.
24:27 That's right.
24:28 And we've seen that historically.
24:29 There was a big one in 2012, which, you know, if we were looking at it in the same angle,
24:34 erupted this way.
24:35 So there'd been enormous coronal mass ejection, but none of it affected us.
24:38 We weren't in the line, so we didn't see it at all.
24:41 And so what's this?
24:42 These are the graphs.
24:43 What are these showing?
24:44 This gives an indication of the arrival time.
24:47 So it's the top one we're looking at.
24:48 There's a couple of satellites there, which are also plotted.
24:50 But really, it's this top one here, which is for earth.
24:54 And it gives us an idea of the arrival time of the coronal mass ejection, and sort of
24:58 a rough idea of the sort of speed and plasma density.
25:02 For our forecasters, that helps us sort of assess the impacts that we would get.
25:06 It is critically the arrival time that we're looking for, so that we can sort of inform
25:10 customers and the public when they can see the aurora.
25:14 And so in terms of the arrival time, how long is this?
25:18 These are hours long at the bottom, are they?
25:20 These are days.
25:21 Oh, these are days.
25:22 Oh, sorry, that's just the dates of it happening, right?
25:24 And is that a high density plasma, up to 100?
25:29 It ended up being pretty high.
25:31 So we saw G5.
25:33 OK, so yeah, there's a scale, isn't there?
25:36 So we were expecting high G4, and it turned out it was just at times tipped into the G5.
25:41 How does that work?
25:42 It's a scale of 1 to 5, like hurricanes, I guess.
25:45 It's a scale of 1 to 5.
25:47 That's it entirely.
25:48 And it's engaged on the magnitude of the geomagnetic storming once these have arrived at earth.
25:53 Right.
25:54 So it's not just about what, if it was missing us, it wouldn't be a G5 that missed us.
25:58 It's measured once it's right.
26:00 Yeah, it's the impacts that we then sort of measure here on earth that we're looking at.
26:05 And G stands for geomagnetic?
26:07 Yeah, that's it.
26:08 I'm on it.
26:09 I'm all over it.
26:10 So it's a scale of 1 to 5.
26:11 And it was at 5.
26:12 This was at 5.
26:13 How rare are 5s?
26:14 They are pretty rare.
26:15 So the last time that we saw one was back in 2003.
26:20 This is the strongest geomagnetic storm that we've seen in 21 years.
26:25 The last solar cycle was quiet, though.
26:28 So we're not used to seeing this in recent times.
26:31 And the solar cycle is the 11-year solar-- we know that the sun has that 11-year cycle.
26:36 I think you touched on this in the last video with Alex.
26:39 You can go check that out on our previous Deep Dive with Alex B with Krista, I think,
26:44 a couple of months ago.
26:45 We'll put a link to it in the bottom of the thing.
26:47 So yeah, there's an 11-year solar cycle.
26:49 And we're getting towards the peak, right?
26:51 Yeah, that's right.
26:52 So the solar cycle is based on the number of sunspots.
26:54 We saw the minimum, fewest sunspots, the maximum, the most.
26:58 And we should be around solar max around about now.
27:01 So we start seeing more sunspots, more frequent space weather events, and more potential to
27:05 have larger events like this.
27:07 So it could happen again.
27:10 We could, over the next few months, see things similar to this.
27:13 It wouldn't be a surprise if that happens.
27:14 Yeah, over the coming years, that's when we're primed to be getting more space weather events.
27:19 And although we haven't seen one of this magnitude in 20 years-- as I say, the last solar cycle
27:25 was really quiet.
27:26 In previous solar cycles, there's been multiple G5 storms that we've seen.
27:30 So just because we've had one now, it doesn't mean that we wouldn't see one in the next
27:34 couple of years.
27:35 So if you missed it, like I did, don't feel too bad.
27:39 There may be more opportunities.
27:40 You just need it to not be cloudy.
27:43 That's the thing.
27:44 I mean, that's the thing, isn't it?
27:45 That Friday night, everything kind of came together on Friday night.
27:47 A huge, huge storm.
27:49 But actually, most parts of the UK were cloud-free.
27:52 So yeah, that was a remarkable thing as well.
27:56 And yeah, seen as far south down here.
27:58 So you did see it.
27:59 You went out.
28:00 Yeah.
28:01 Yeah.
28:02 Penny Endersby, our chief executive, she saw it.
28:03 She was up on Dartmoor.
28:04 She tweeted it.
28:05 She was up on Dartmoor as well.
28:07 And then, yeah, I didn't see it.
28:09 But I know a lot of people did see it.
28:12 And yeah, well done if you did see it.
28:13 But that's the reasoning behind it.
28:16 So absolutely fantastic.
28:17 There is a hint that there may be some tonight in northern Scotland, because there's still
28:22 some solar activity.
28:23 So you might get to see it in northern Scotland tonight.
28:25 But actually, after that, it's calming down, the activity for the time being.
28:30 Yes, that sunspot continues to rotate around the other side of the sun.
28:33 We start to be out of the area where it's likely to be connected.
28:36 So the same thing.
28:38 There's still X-class flares going off from that sunspot.
28:40 There are still CMEs being released.
28:42 So yeah, just as you say, in the coming nights, potential.
28:46 And other planets get northern lights as well.
28:50 I saw some footage of Saturn, I think it was, that picked up from the same ground on my
28:55 suggestion.
28:56 So it appears on other planets.
28:57 That's it.
28:58 Because it's an interaction with a magnetic field.
28:59 If other planets have a magnetic field, then they can have similar auroral effects there
29:04 as well.
29:05 So you can get the aurora literally out of this world.
29:09 That is incredible.
29:11 So yeah, so it is calming down.
29:12 There is a small chance tonight.
29:13 But another thing to take into consideration, as we get into almost the shortest day in
29:19 six or seven weeks' time, we see the nights.
29:21 It needs to be dark to see the northern lights, obviously.
29:24 So the actual window is shrinking because of summer.
29:28 That's right, yeah.
29:29 It's just purely down to when it happens.
29:32 And even during the day on Saturday, there was geomagnetic storming happening.
29:36 So we couldn't see it because it was bright sunshine.
29:39 But on the other side of the world, Australia were experiencing aurora and so on.
29:43 Yeah, Iran, Mexico, I've seen reports of the northern lights from the same event.
29:47 So incredible, incredible.
29:50 Krista, thank you so much.
29:52 Thank you so much for joining us.
29:53 Let's hope we can get you back again, maybe later in the year when there's been another
29:56 one and perhaps I can get to get to go and view it.
29:59 I hope so.
30:00 Yeah.
30:01 Thank you very much.
30:02 Thank you.
30:03 OK, we are just about done for this week's Deep Dive.
30:05 But one more thing I just wanted to flag, it is Mental Health Awareness Week, something
30:10 we take very seriously here at the Met Office behind me in the street, as it's known.
30:15 There's a big event going on.
30:17 And I just wanted to draw people's attention to it, because one of the best things you
30:21 can do for your mental health is to get outside, enjoy nature, of course, but also look up
30:26 and enjoy the clouds.
30:29 So yeah, don't be afraid to get a break, go outside, check out what's going on in the
30:33 sky, because there is always something interesting going on in the sky.
30:37 Another good thing you can do for mental health is actually share things.
30:41 So why not share the love of this deep dive and let other people know that we do this
30:45 every week.
30:46 Please keep your comments coming.
30:48 We do read them.
30:49 We do really appreciate them.
30:50 Any suggestions you've got for further content that we can have in the Met Office Deep Dive,
30:56 we do love hearing about it.
30:58 If you could hit the like button, if you've not done already, that would be also very
31:02 beneficial.
31:03 But from me, for this week's Deep Dive, thanks for watching.
31:06 Thank you.