RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) — Those click-bait headlines about the auroras are not always true. Unfortunately, you are not going to see the aurora in North Carolina within the next few days.
This rumor started when a big flare came off the Sun over the weekend, but a solar flare and a CME, or coronal mass ejection, are not the same thing, and they also impact different things.
A solar flare is smaller in comparison and is essentially a "flare" of x-rays and energy coming off the Sun. They can move toward Earth in a matter of hours but are more likely to impact the part of our atmosphere that will cause issues for radio and satellite communications.
A CME (coronal mass ejection) is a literal explosion of plasma and magnetized particles off the surface of the Sun. They are much larger and can reach Earth in a few days, and are the ones that cause a geomagnetic storm (and the aurora) by interacting with our magnetic field.
Flares and CMEs can occur at the same time, but it's the CME that causes the aurora, and the flare that can cause radio blackouts.
Space weather is complicated and can be very hard to predict. Our Sun is an active star, and it's in a very active period right now (which is actually why we've been having more large solar flares) but the latest forecast from the Space Weather Prediction Center doesn't call for a geomagnetic storm, so the aurora forecast is going to stay well to the north of North Carolina.
There are a lot of great space weather resources that explain this all in more detail. You can check out the Aurora Dashboard from the Space Weather Prediction Center here, to learn about the different kinds of space weather here and if you're a visual learner, the folks at NASA Goddard have a great video that explains the differences between a solar flare and a CME here.
