Communicating Solar Storms: The Importance of Space Weather Storytelling

2024 was a historic year for space weather. The Ganon Storm in May made the world pause for moments taking in the breathtaking and mesmerizing auroras lighting up the sky on different continents, drawing more interest and questions than ever before about space weather and it's impacts to Earth as we see with terrestrial weather. Members of local and national media filled social media sharing photos and videos from the event, and while it helped spread the word about this incredible geomagnetic storm, so much more could have been done to educate the general public. Broadcast meteorologists play a critical role spreading messaging and communicating important and noteworthy activity pertaining to weather on Earth, however, there is much more that needs to be done moving forward to help make space weather a priority too being station scientists. This presentation will discuss my experience as a broadcast meteorologist and space/STEM journalist during this event and propose ways that organizations like NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center can work in tandem with members of the media to better educate and inform the public about impacts from space weather events moving forward and especially being in such an active Solar Cycle. This presentation will also touch on the benefits that would come from broadcast meteorologists being made more aware of and understanding space weather to the point they are more comfortable presenting it on-air with using the example of the big May storm. During this discussion, different ways will be presented to encourage other ideas in which space weather scientists and organizations can work together with broadcast meteorologists to come up with ideas for working these topics into stories and part of the weather section in the newscast as noteworthy and interesting science topics.