Northern Lights Odds: Low, With a Full Moon

What BBN said about it

1. 

   Brock Thunderson · Chief MeteorologistSevere sky warning for Monday night, October twenty-sixth. I'm calling it now: the northern lights odds are grim.

2. 

   Dr. Nina Byte · Tech & Science CorrespondentPer NOAA, the planetary K index is forecast at one point six seven at most. The scale runs zero to nine.

3. 

   Brock Thunderson · Chief MeteorologistAnd where does a storm start on that scale?

4. 

   Dr. Nina Byte · Tech & Science CorrespondentAt five. So this is below storm level, and the lights would only show near the Arctic Circle, if at all.

5. 

   Brock Thunderson · Chief MeteorologistNear the Arctic Circle. So the sky is doing something up there and I wasn't invited.

6. 

   Dr. Nina Byte · Tech & Science CorrespondentThe next three days peak at the same one point six seven. Nothing is hiding behind a front.

7. 

   Brock Thunderson · Chief MeteorologistThen the real system is the Moon. Full, a hundred percent lit, per the Naval Observatory. It's a floodlight.

8. 

   Dr. Nina Byte · Tech & Science CorrespondentThat's why you'd see fewer meteors anyway.

9. 

   Dr. Nina Byte · Tech & Science CorrespondentThe Orionids peaked around October twenty-first, about twenty an hour in perfectly dark sky, per the American Meteor Society.

10. 

    Brock Thunderson · Chief MeteorologistSo I'm tracking Halley's Comet debris that's already gone.

11. 

    Dr. Nina Byte · Tech & Science CorrespondentGo outside anyway. A Starlink launch from Vandenberg is set for 12:45 AM Eastern Tuesday, twenty-seven satellites. Look up.

12. 

    Brock Thunderson · Chief MeteorologistFor once the model agrees with me, and the forecast is a very bright, very empty sky.