Meet Space Weather expert Krista Hammond who has been forecasting with the Met Office for 16 years. Kirsta is an operational Space Weather Meteorologist as well as a senior Account Manager for Space Weather. As we enter into a solar maximum, Space Weather activity has been hitting the headlines, not only because of the frequency of the spectacular display of the aurora borealis but because there has been a forecast for one of the largest geomagnetic storms to have hit the earth for 20 year. This level of storm is powerful enough to knock out power grids, networks, navigation and more. The scale of space weather is simple mind blowing. Krista talks about the difference between solar flare, solar radiation storms and coronal mass ejections (CME’s). She explains the remarkable speed that each can travel at and how much warning we might potentially have before they hit the Earth. A CME is in a whole league to its own and can affect not just a local region but an entire hemisphere. Krista tells us that unlike modern forecasting for the weather on Earth, there is very limited ways to understand what’s happening in the sun. The main way to do this is to use satellites which look at the sun in different wavelengths and well as looking at the sun’s magnetic fields. We learn why we need to know what a ‘Lagrange points’ is and why a European Space Agency mission called VIGIL could revolutionise space weather forecasting. Listen on to find out why Krista loves summer, Noctilucent clouds and why even though she is a space weather forecaster she has never seen the Northern Lights! If you would like to contact Krista she is on LinkedIn - Krista Hammond - Space Weather. You can follow the podcast on ‘X’ we are @4loveofweather and on Instagram @fortheloveofweather. Thanks so much for listening and supporting the podcast, and we hope you leave this episode loving the weather just a little bit more.