Watch: NWT begins big aurora year with US TV showcase

“Everywhere you look, there’s aurora.”

ABC News chief meteorologist Ginger Zee swapped the network’s Times Square studios for Yellowknife in December, heading out to see the northern lights with North Star Adventures aurora hunter Joe Bailey.

The results aired on ABC’s flagship show, Good Morning America, this week.

The segment, sponsored by tourism body Destination Canada and viewed by millions of Americans, begins a year that’s expected to bring the best aurora you’ll see this decade.

We already knew we were approaching a solar maximum – the time in a roughly 11-year cycle at which the Sun’s activity reaches its highest point. That means more sunspots, more solar flares, more geomagnetic storms and ultimately more northern lights.

But a revised forecast issued by scientists in October last year calls for a stronger solar maximum than was previously expected.

“Solar activity will increase more quickly and peak at a higher level” than initially forecast, the update concluded.

While this solar cycle still won’t have as strong a peak as some previous ones, the forecast suggests 2024 has a high likelihood of being the biggest aurora year this decade.

A sponsored segment on Good Morning America shows the Canadian tourism industry already trying to capitalize on that.

Meteorologist Zee and her team hired local help when they filmed in December, and Yellowknife photographer Bill Braden makes an appearance describing how he captures the magic of the northern lights on camera. There’s also a demonstration of Dene hand games.

“I can’t tell you how otherworldly it felt,” Zee concluded, back at ABC’s New York City headquarters, adding she had been impressed by the connection of the Dene people to the land – and the energy of a dog-sledding trip.

There are other signs of the NWT gearing up for a big year ahead.

This week, the University of Calgary relaunched its annual live feed of the northern lights from a camera pointed toward the sky in Yellowknife.

For years, the university’s AuroraMax observatory has offered live images of the city’s night sky.

Noting the solar maximum coming up, AuroraMax project leader Dr Eric Donovan was quoted as saying: “We’re heading into an exciting period.”

“For my job, it’s meat and potatoes. I need the aurora because the aurora tells me about things like the magnetosphere,” Donovan added.

“But the first time I saw the aurora? It was a spiritual experience. It was 1982 and I was sitting on the shore of Lake Huron at one in the morning and the aurora came over the horizon, and honestly, it changed the way I looked at the night sky forever. It was incredible.”