NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) in Boulder, Colo., issued a G3 (strong) geomagnetic storm watch for Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2025 into the following day. This comes as forecasters watch a pair of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) that are anticipated to arrive around midnight.
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Models suggest that these CMEs will reach us slightly to each side of Earth rather than more directly. But as WRAL meteorologist Chris Michaels shared, this storm could still be strong enough to see color in central North Carolina on our northern horizon.
The best views of the aurora borealis will be in the northern states down to into the upper midwest and across to Pennsylvania.
But as the advisory from the SWPC above notes, confidence isn't great on the timing of each event, and we won't know how strong each CME actually is until they are right on our doorstep.
Forecast uncertainty
Space weather forecasters have an even more difficult challenge than their terrestrial colleagues. They have less information to work with. While we can keep eyes on a hurricane from the time it begins forming off the coast of Africa and can begin gathering direct (scientists call it in-situ) measurements days before it reaches land, space weather scientists are far more limited.
Forecasters study changes on the Sun itself, then have no information for a day to several days until the particles and energy released by events like a CME are on Earth's doorstep. Only then can they finally get some in-situ measurements.
Instruments aboard spacecraft like NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory and STEREO provide eyes-on views of the sun in multiple wavelengths of light across the visible spectrum into extreme ultraviolet. By looking across a variety of wavelengths scientists can see how particles and heat move through the sun's atmosphere.
A CME's direction can be determined by patterns in the particles as they are released from the sun's photosphere, the thin layer of hot gas we see as the sun's "surface." Like a smoke ring being blown toward you, a very round ring, or halo, is an indication of an Earth-directed CME.
This wasn't observed with either CME, leading forecasters to look for the pair to flank Earth as they pass.
We'll know a lot more as these CMEs pass Earth's doorstep, a point of gravitational balance called Lagrange point one (L1) directly between the earth and sun.
The joint NOAA/NASA Deep Space Climate Observatory (DISCVR) parked at L1 serves as a space weather buoy off Earth's coast. Instruments aboard DISCVR offer that first in-situ look at speed, density and makeup of the solar wind.
Even at that million-mile distance, this provides less than an hour heads-up. Fast moving CMEs cut that time down as low as 15 minutes.
Polarity of the particles is particularly interesting because it indicates if they might connect well to Earth's magnetic field, funneling down toward the equator enabling us to see aurora here in the Carolinas or will be repelled away.
