Happy Aphelion! Today marks the one day of the year Earth is farthest away from the sun. 

There is a higher-than-zero chance the aurora borealis could be visible over our area Sunday night, but please do not get your hopes up. We are positioned so far south of the north pole that a lot of weird things have to happen for you to have any chance to see the "northern lights," and while a few of those things are happening, it is still really unlikely we will be able to see much of anything here. 

Perihelion is happening today! The word comes from Greek and means near the Sun. The Sun won't appear noticeably larger in the sky – only about 3% larger.

We have another hot week ahead, but the heat won't be the only impact the sun brings. The UV index is climbing again as we look ahead to a week full of partly to mostly sunny skies. 

We saw a lot of snow melt today even though temperatures didn't climb above freezing. Here's how that works:

The Space Weather Prediction Center has issued a Geomagnetic Storm Watch after a solar flare on November 2.

Did you know NOAA has a Space Weather Prediction Center? NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, is the same umbrella office that houses the National Weather Service.

Last night some of you enjoyed a really beautiful sunset in our area! Did you know we can actually predict a particularly beautiful sunset/sunrise? 

Over the last several weeks, you have probably noticed the sun (or moon) looked a little bit more pink or orange than normal. We've seen some beautiful photos sent into WDRB of that very phenomenon. It's caused by smoke particles in the atmosphere, but today we are going to look at why smoke can do this to the sun.