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You still here 10 4 22 no play

Cowboy State Daily is Wyoming’s largest newspaper with Wyoming’s most experienced journalists. 

<title>You Still Here? Tuesday, October 4, 2022 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

It's like a kitten clown car...

You Still Here?  Tuesday, October 4, 2022

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's Feature Reporter, Andrew Rossi.

Andrew Rossi

Outdoors

Wildlife

Some type of large animal, most likely a bear, was spotted on the west side of Laramie on Friday, causing the city to close sections of the Laramie River Greenbelt.

As of publication Friday evening, the area remained closed and a trouble bear hadn’t been found.

The city reported the closure “due to a bear sighting” near the Wyoming State Veterinary Laboratory on the eastern side of Interstate 80. The bear appeared to have wandered down from the hills in search of food.

Barricades were installed on streets in the vicinity of the sighting, and residents were asked to avoid the area for their own safety.

Cowboy State Daily was unable to reach the city of Laramie or the Wyoming Game and Fish Department for additional information.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Bears And Barricades"}]

There’s been an influx of bear sightings and incidents in southeast Wyoming this year.

Two black bears wandered into Cheyenne three days apart in mid-May. One of the bears, a 2-year-old male, was captured after it 

sought shelter in Karolyn Middleton’s barn

Wyoming Game and Fish "told me it was probably a young bear that had been pushed out a little way,” Middleton told Cowboy State Daily on May 12.

 after wandering into a subdivision on the north side of Cheyenne. 

It was legally taken by a landowner in the area that had a valid hunting tag for black bear hunt Area 35, which includes Cheyenne.

“The bear wandered to a neighboring property, and my neighbor went in the house, came back out with hunter orange on and a rifle, walked up to where the bear was hiding, and shot it dead,” a neighbor who wished to remain anonymous told Cowboy State Daily. “Point-blank range, doubt it was 10 feet."

 in Cheyenne’s Clear Creek Park in September 2023. That bear was tranquilized, lifted out of the tree by a cherry picker, and relocated westward to the Snowy Range.

In 2022, a 2-year-old male black bear was found wandering in a Laramie neighborhood. That bear was also tranquilized and released in the Snowy Range.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Recolonization"}]

Black bears have, historically, been rare in the southeastern corner of Wyoming, but there are indications that their range might be expanding.

“I hate to say things are impossible, because wildlife continues to adapt and surprise us,” said Wyoming Game and Fish Large Carnivore Specialist Dan Thompson. “Black bears evolved with forested ecosystems, and in the last half-century or less, we have started seeing expansions of black bears back into previous haunts in North America, or more appropriately, recolonization."

Laramie resident Anne Brande wasn’t surprised to hear a black bear was spotted in that particular spot.

“It’s a riparian area in the Laramie Basin in June,” she said. “He’s looking for food and water, and I’m sure that’s an enticing spot for a bear.”

Brande, who “walks the greenbelt daily,” found some irony in the city of Laramie’s response. While they’re obviously trying to preserve people’s safety, it’s because of a fact, she feels, they’ve been reluctant to acknowledge.

“City Manager Todd Feezer told the Laramie City Council and the public that the Laramie Greenbelt has no wildlife,” she said. “It’s like when they spotted a mountain lion over by LaPrele Park and told people, ‘Don’t go there,’ and the whole community flocked there because everybody wanted a mountain lion sighting.”

Brand wasn’t concerned about the black bear sighting. She didn’t think it would be a fan of the neighborhood.

“It’s not like he’s going there to hang out,” she said. “I don't think he's going to like all the people in the neighborhoods around that area. He’s going to pass through. Wildlife passes great distances. They’re used to that.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Greenbelt Blight"}]

For Brande, the black bear sighting was a sign of how wild and habitable the Laramie Greenbelt is for local wildlife. That’s been a point of contention between Laramie residents and the local government.

“The City Council keeps talking about the West Side Blight Plan, and that’s very frustrating to me,” she said. “It's the Laramie River Greenbelt Blight Plan, and a lot of people have been blindsided by it.”

According to Brande, the Laramie city manager and planner presented the West Side Blight Plan to make infrastructure improvements like streets, curbs, gutters, and sewer to the area around the Laramie River Greenbelt Park.

One of their main points in favor of developing the area was that, according to Brande, it was inhospitable to wildlife because it had been a superfund site. Brande said that’s patently untrue.

“I’ve personally seen herons there,” she said. “I have seen a bald eagle there. I see raccoons and foxes there. People got there for fly fishing and birdwatching. There is a ton of wildlife there, and that's why I love it so much.”

Brande also said the city’s position on the habitat assessment of the Laramie Greenbelt hasn’t been consistent at the public meetings she’s made a point to attend, so she can speak against the West Side Blight Plan.

“At first, I was told there's no wildlife there because it’s too contaminated,” she said. “During subsequent public meetings, after I was told that it was too polluted to have wildlife, they said there were no pollutants, but it would still be good to do a blight designation. It was extremely confusing.”

At this point, Brande said it’s all “water under the bridge” since the Laramie City Council approved the blight designation. Now, she’s hoping they won’t pursue their intended projects.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"'A Treasure'"}]

From what Brande has heard, the area around Laramie River Greenbelt Park has been proposed as a potential site for a future housing development. She’s against that plan, on principle and practicality.

“You don't want to monetize an extreme floodplain, and that's a FEMA extreme floodplain of the Laramie River,” she said.

Brande sees the Laramie Greenbelt as an undervalued natural asset for the city of Laramie and believes many other residents share her perspective. It’s an easily accessible piece of wilderness for people who want to step away from the bustle of Wyoming’s biggest college town.

“I see people from all over the county actually using the greenbelts with me very often,” she said. “You don’t have to have a car or drive to Medicine Bow National Forest to find a spot like this. It’s a 10-minute walk from my house.”

Brande hopes the Laramie River Greenbelt will remain as it is. Even if the alluring environment draws in the occasional black bear, it’s a sign that there’s a habitat worth preserving in Laramie, for wildlife and residents.

“I'm talking to you in a metropolitan coffee shop in San Francisco, California, and I haven't seen one bird,” she said. “Not one. You’ve got to enjoy the Greenbelt because it’s such an accessible way for anyone to find nature in our community. It gives me such peace of mind. It’s a treasure.”

Laramie River Greenbelt Park Visit Laramie 6 5 26

<title>Laramie Closes Popular Greenbelt Park After Bear Sighting | Cowboy State Daily</title>

The city of Laramie closed sections of Laramie River Greenbelt Park on Friday because of a bear sighting in the area. Barricades were installed on streets in the vicinity of the sighting, and residents were asked to avoid the area for their own safety.

Laramie Closes Popular Greenbelt Park After Bear Sighting

Kolby fedore

Kolby Fedore

Crime & Courts

Courts

A Washington man is facing 14 wildlife-related criminal charges in Campbell County after Wyoming investigators say years-old Instagram videos, voice messages and cellphone data uncovered evidence of alleged illegal hunting trips that stretched back more than a decade.

Court records filed in Campbell County allege Bobby Chuck Ephrem, 48, illegally killed antelope and mule deer in Wyoming in 2014, 2015 and 2020, sometimes from vehicles, sometimes without licenses and at least once using a .22-caliber pistol that investigators say was illegal for taking big game.

The charges stem from an Idaho wildlife investigation that eventually led Wyoming Game and Fish investigators to social media posts, archived videos and cellphone extractions that they say show hunting activity in Campbell County.

An arrest warrant was issued June 4, 2025. Ephrem later appeared in Campbell County Circuit Court for an initial appearance on Tuesday, where bond was set at $75,000. Court records show he posted a surety bond on Wednesday.

As a condition of release, Ephrem is not allowed to leave Campbell County and is barred from hunting, fishing, trapping, collecting shed antlers or accompanying anyone engaged in hunting or fishing activities while the case is pending.

A voicemail seeking comment from the Campbell County Attorney's Office was not returned before publication.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A Case Built From Phones And Social Media"}]

The investigation began in April 2024 when Idaho conservation officers shared information uncovered during an ongoing wildlife investigation, according to an affidavit filed by Wyoming Game and Fish Investigator Daniel Beach.

Investigators say Instagram videos, voice messages, and other evidence pointed them toward multiple incidents involving antelope and mule deer.

Beach wrote that he later traveled to Oregon in June 2024 to assist Oregon State Police while that agency executed a search warrant at Ephrem's home.

During the search and interview, investigators say Ephrem talked about several mounted animals displayed in his home and admitted to killing some of them in Wyoming.

The affidavit shows Wyoming investigators subsequently reviewed cellphone extraction data, Instagram videos and archived voice messages that they believe corroborated those admissions.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"'No Permission, Just Shoot'"}]

Some of the most serious allegations center on an October 2020 antelope hunt in Campbell County.

Investigators discovered Instagram voice messages sent from Ephrem's account that referenced plans to hunt antelope in Wyoming.

One message cited in the charging documents read, "We're going antelope hunting today."

Another allegedly said, "No, just drive around and shoot shit. No permission, just shoot."

Investigators say they later identified the location shown in one of the videos as private property owned by Peabody Caballo Mining LLC south of Gillette.

Neither the company nor the rancher leasing the pasture granted permission for the hunting activity depicted in the videos, wrote Beach. 

In another video, investigators say Ephrem can be seen firing a rifle at antelope from inside a vehicle. 

Investigators also allege the video showed Ephrem handing the rifle to a younger passenger.

The charging documents include allegations of wanton destruction of antelope, taking big game from a vehicle, trespassing to hunt and accessory counts connected to those offenses.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The .22-Caliber Pistol Allegation"}]

A separate video described in the affidavit forms the basis for another series of charges.

Investigators say the recording showed Ephrem driving a Dodge Ram pickup while firing a pistol at multiple antelope from the roadway and adjacent ditch.

Beach wrote they later determined the firearm appeared to be a GSG 1911-style .22-caliber pistol, and that Ephrem fired 10 rounds at several antelope from close range.

During a June 2024 interview, Ephrem said, "I remember shooting, yes, got it.'" 

The case includes charges alleging illegal use of a firearm for taking big game, wanton destruction and taking big game from a vehicle.

Investigators also allege another man, who they say appeared in some of the videos, later confirmed witnessing portions of the hunt during a recorded interview.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Allegations Reach Back To 2014"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"The investigation didn't stop with the 2020 videos."}]

Cellphone data allegedly connected Ephrem to an antelope killed in 2015 and a mule deer killed in 2014.

Beach wrote that Ephrem admitted during a 2024 interview to those killings. 

Wyoming licensing records showed Ephrem did not possess licenses for those species during the years in question, says investigators, and that Ephrem improperly used or transferred hunting licenses connected to his son during some of the incidents.

Cellphone photographs, taxidermy records and statements made during interviews were used to support those allegations.

The charges remain allegations. Ephrem has not been convicted, and the case will proceed through Wyoming's court system. His next expected appearance will be held within about 10 days for a preliminary hearing. 

Campell county pronghorn 4 5 26

<title>'No Permission, Just Shoot': Instagram Videos Lead To Wyoming Poaching Charges | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A Washington man faces 14 Wyoming poaching-related charges after Game and Fish investigators say Instagram videos and phone data exposed illegal hunts over more than 10 years. “No permission, just shoot,” the man messaged, Game and Fish says.

'No Permission, Just Shoot': Instagram Videos Lead To Wyoming Poaching Charges

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's business and tourism reporter, Renée Jean

Renée Jean

Energy

Green

CHEYENNE — Protests and rallies are something f

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"In fact, Thursday marked a first for him."}]

Stephens, whose family has what he describes as a “modest” cow-calf operation south of Glenrock that’s been there since 1910, said he’s spent most of his life avoiding microphones and politics. 

But as wind projects have encircled his part of the county, he felt he could no longer afford not to get involved.

“We’ve got surrounded by wind farms,” he told a crowd gathered Thursday at the Wyoming Capitol in Cheyenne to call for more study of a wind wall that’s sprung up across a 200-mile swath of southeast Wyoming. 

“If you look at Converse County right now, between the farms that are there and the ones that are proposed, it’s 200,000 acres,” he said. "That’s a lot. And then this 

 showed up. Half of it’s going to be on state land. That was enough for me.”

When he started talking to neighbors, Stephens learned how widespread wind farms had become. That made him feel uneasy. 

So, he decided to come and be part of what was his first-ever rally, even though it meant his family’s ranch would be short-handed that day. 

“I have talked to ranchers all around,” he said. “I’ve talked to 68 ranchers, and there’s 50-some against it, three who won’t say, and six who are for it,” he said. “And this is the ranchers all the way around me. And they don’t have to save the ranch. They’ll go to work and do whatever they need to do to make it.”

At a State Board of Land Commissioners meeting in Douglas that Stephens helped arrange, he saw 200-some people in the crowd, with another 100 or so on Zoom, all against more wind in Wyoming. 

More Than 3,500 Signatures On Petition So Far

For the rally on Thursday, Stephens brought his daughter-in-law Kelsey and two grandchildren, Emory and Acelynn, to Cheyenne. 

“My husband and I built our home with our own two hands alongside family and friends,” Kelsey told the crowd. “We chose this place intentionally for the land, the view, and the life it allows us to live. 

"Picture a summer evening on our front porch — crickets and frogs singing, the smell of freshly cut hay in the air, and the red hills glowing as the sun sets. That’s a view that will take your breath away.”

And it’s exactly where a new wind farm plans to locate.

A petition the family has helped circulate has so far gathered 1,778 signatures from Converse County residents alone, Emory told the crowd, with another 500 from Douglas and another 1,241 coming from Glenrock and nearby areas. That’s more than 3,500 signatures so far.

About 98% of those are from Wyoming residents, Emory added. 

“Based on the most recent available data, Converse County generates approximately 43% of Wyoming wind power and electricity, but only receives 12% of the wind generation tax revenue,” she said. “That’s a small fraction of the benefits compared to what it produces for many residents.”

For her, the point of the rally in Cheyenne was all about making sure Wyoming people, including ranchers, have a say in the decisions that are affecting them.

On a map taped to her kitchen table, Cheyenne Realtor and Dereemer Ranch family member Wendy Volk has plotted an informal picture of what Wyoming’s wind tower surge looks like on the land. 

She started the map a little more than a year ago after receiving a letter notifying her that one or more neighbors planned to rezone their land from agricultural to industrial. The map she received with the notice was all but incomprehensible.

There was a dot for Cheyenne in the right-hand corner of the page and another dot in the lefthand corner for Laramie. Chugwater floated near the top of the page.

“Smack dab in the middle of that was this postage-size stamp, depicting this project,” she said. “And I’m a real estate agent, but I couldn’t make heads or tail of that map.”

A different page offered an enlargement of the postage stamp, a 56,000-acre tract dotted with 189 wind turbines, crisscrossed with access roads and transmission lines, as well as symbols for substations. 

But it was still impossible to tell where her family’s property was in relation to all of that.

She reached out to the company for a better map, and that wasn’t as straightforward as she had expected.

“I kept being very tenacious, asking questions, and then the gentleman said I have to go through legal,” she said. “He eventually sent me a better map, which he thought didn’t show that we were even touching.”

With the improved map, though, Volk finally verified that the project was about 1,000 feet off of her property line, as well as some of her neighbors. That’s when she started looking for a bigger picture. 

She hadn’t set out to become an expert on Wyoming’s industrial siting laws or federal permits. She just wanted to see a master map of all the projects to understand their overall footprint on the land. 

She’d noticed, now that her own property was directly affected, that there were an awful lot of wind projects popping up all over the place. She figured someone, somewhere would already have created such a map at the state level.

Nope. And further, there had been no state-level look at the cumulative effects of all these many wind projects.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"So she decided to make her own."}]

“I started putting pink sticky notes on a Wyoming map anytime someone mentioned a wind or solar project,” she said. “All of a sudden, the sticky notes were like connecting dots. And that’s when I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, this is an entire wall of wind projects that will stretch easily from Casper to Cheyenne and from Cheyenne to Rawlins. It’s just going to fill in and create a triangle.'”

It will be a massive “wind wall” that industrializes well over 200 miles of southeastern Wyoming rangeland and migration corridors, she said.

In Volk’s mind, the problem with that isn’t just any one wind farm in particular. It’s that no one at the state level is looking at the whole picture. 

Across southeast Wyoming, ranchers like Volk and her family rarely show up at hearings in their own communities, much less drive hours to Cheyenne to attend Industrial Siting Council meetings or stand on the Capitol steps for something like a rally.

Making time to be in Cheyenne means leaving their families shorthanded for tasks involving animals and fields. 

But Thursday, Stephens and Volk were there with other ranching families to help make a statement about what they feel is unprecedented and unconstrained growth of wind towers in Wyoming.

“These are not protest kind of people,” fourth-generation Wyomingite and Albany County Conservancy founder Anne Brande told Cowboy State Daily. “But they are calling me from Niobrara County, from Chugwater, from Wheatland, from Casper, from Goshen. 

"People are just tired of these (wind turbines) in these rural communities. They want to have a state conversation about it.”

Brande’s group isn’t asking to stop every wind turbine, but they want tougher siting scrutiny, as well as a cumulative impact review that looks at how so many wind turbines showing up all at once will affect wildlife, migration corridors, viewsheds, agricultural land, and rural communities across Wyoming. 

Wind turbines have already killed a number of golden eagles, Brande said. 

“We’ve been trying to place a golden eagle nest cam,” she said. “We think that’d be a fun project, but we’re having a hard time locating a viable nest, a viable golden eagle nest, and that’s a very different narrative than what we had even two, three years ago.”

Federal policy analyst David Wojick has spent the past two years digging into what wind development is doing to golden eagles across the American West.

He says the Eagle Protection Act is misnamed and is actually a license to kill a certain number of golden eagles every time a project gets a permit. That’s because each permit allows a certain amount of eagle “take” or deaths.

“There’s supposedly a program whereby every eagle that’s killed by a wind turbine, 1.2 golden eagles are saved from electrocution, because the wind people pay to have power poles somewhere in the country fixed,” he said. “As far as I’m concerned, that’s all false, by the way. And that’s the thing that I’m the most focused on.”

Wojick has been involved in broad environmental impact assessments of offshore wind in Wales for the last six or so years, and said that’s what he believes Wyoming needs to do about its wind wall.

“We’ve got this huge number of projects, some of which are built, some of which are under construction, and a whole bunch of which have been applied for in various processes,” he said. “And they’re being treated individually. The cumulative effect is obvious, and could be devastating.”

Wojick sees an “ecological death trap” phenomenon with such a widespread swath of land being taken up by wind towers. 

“Somebody’s got to be looking at that,” he said. “The feds should be looking at it. I don’t know if there’s some provision in Wyoming wildlife law for this, but if there isn’t, then the governor should just like convene a task force or committee to look at this.”

Wojick has seen studies showing the number of golden eagles killed by wind turbines has doubled in the Rocky Mountain West. 

He’s also heard ornithologist and bird biologist Bryan Bedrosian’s say that Wyoming’s golden eagle population has dropped by 30% over the last 20 years. Bedrosian is founder of Sporting Lead-Free, as well as conservation director at Teton Raptors Center.

“When you’ve got around 1,500 turbines at this point and with another 1,500 coming, I mean you could wipe (golden eagles) out, quite literally,” Wojick said. “You need to have a moratorium until somebody decides how many eagles you’re prepared to kill.”

What’s The Legacy For Future Generations?

For ranchers like Stephens and Volk, the wind wall isn’t theoretical. It’s either become the view from their front porches, or will be soon.

They’re not asking to turn back the clock on every wind turbine in the state. They just want a thoughtful look at the big picture, instead of a piecemeal approach.

“Governor Gordon’s recent executive order just yesterday regarding data center development recognizes many of these same concerns,” Volk said. “It acknowledges the importance of stewardship, water resources, wildlife, local communities and the entire region. 

"If Wyoming recognizes the need to evaluate cumulative impacts associated with large-scale data center development, then we should be willing to examine the cumulative impacts of industrial corridors forming across southeastern Wyoming.”

The rally, she added, is not about protesting energy development. 

“It’s about making sure Wyoming residents have a voice and the cumulative effects of these projects are honestly evaluated before our landscapes are permanently changed,” she said. “Today, I respectfully ask our city council members, our county commissioners, our state legislators, our state agencies, governing boards to consider the bigger picture, because southeastern Wyoming is not an empty space on a map. 

"It is ranch land, it is wildlife habitat, it is open space, and it is our heritage.”

Wyoming has a responsibility, she added. to be good stewards of that land, and to consider carefully the legacy that will be left to future generations, a legacy she’s sketched out in pink sticky notes that paint what she feels will be a disquieting story.

Wind rally 20260604 121506 6 4 26

<title>Wyoming Ranchers Rally Against 'Wind Wall' Of Turbines Across The State | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Wyoming ranchers rallied at the state Capitol on Thursday demanding action against what they call a “wind wall” of turbines across the state. “We’ve got surrounded by wind farms,” said one rancher about wind power and its impact on Wyoming’s rural future.

Wyoming Ranchers Rally Against 'Wind Wall' Of Turbines Across The State

Wyoming Life

Around Wyoming

Another aurora is heading for the skies over Wyoming, and it might be the last good 

natural light show for Cowboy State residents

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) has issued 

Three coronal mass ejections (CMEs) surged out of the sun on Tuesday and are anticipated to reach Earth’s atmosphere sometime Thursday.

“The current forecast calls for combined CME arrival around mid-afternoon (Thursday), with up to G3 levels possible afterward,” according to the SWPC. “CME passage would likely continue into the evening and possibly overnight hours of (Friday).”

Wyoming aurora enthusiasts are already anticipating a good show, and they’ll be making the most of it. 

[{"type":"text","text":"There might not be another one this good for another 10 years or more."}]

“I wasn't expecting any more activity after last spring's activity,” said Jan Curtis, a retired meteorologist and former Wyoming state climatologist. “We're definitely at the edge of the envelope for seeing these big displays during this solar cycle.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A Cannibalistic Event"}]

The intensity of CMEs ranges from G1 to G5. The incoming CME is now a G3, but the SWPC believes it could be G4 by the time it reaches Earth.

Curtis said the intensity of this CME is “a cannibal-type event.” The three CMEs ejected from the sun are intensifying each other as they hurtle through space.

“When one CME catches up to another, it intensifies it,” he said. “It adds a force multiplier to the intensity of the initial eruption.”

That said, there’s no way of knowing how intense the subsequent aurora will be until it gets here. Curtis said there’s “a 50/50 chance” that there will be a super-strong aurora visible in Wyoming, even though it’s almost guaranteed that the CMEs will reach Earth.

“When Earth’s atmosphere is positively charged, they repel other positively charged particles, like a magnet,” he said. “The last time this happened, we were expecting a pretty good display, but the magnetic declination was in the wrong direction.”

Even the SWPC acknowledges there is “a rather complex series of events and circumstances” that will impact the intensity of 

If the CMEs are even more Earth-directed than they already seem to be, they will continue to intensify each other before combining with each other in Earth’s atmosphere.

“The forecasts of aurora are always questionable,” Curtis said. “The SWPC gives you the best estimate they can, but if there are multiple solar wind bursts coming through, that’s usually a good indicator that we will get to see something.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"All-Nighter"}]

Aurora enthusiast and photographer Laura Redmond is already anticipating an “all-nighter” based on the developing forecast.

“They're comparing this storm possibly to the one in May 2024, and that was a very good one,” she said.

The May 2024 auroras were considered some of the best in living memory in Wyoming. They started with 

 between May 10 and 12 of that year, followed by 

Redmond isn’t getting her hopes too high, but said the current outlook is “pretty promising.”

“When a CME hits the Earth, it takes several hours for it to push this far south,” she said. “I'm hoping that it'll hit between noon and 3 p.m., because then it should be down by dark down here in Wyoming. From the numbers yesterday, it looks pretty promising.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Mooning Us"}]

When it comes to CMEs, timing can be tricky. There’s no definite time someone can expect to step outside and see the aurora at its peak.

Redmond had a few suggestions based on her personal experience that have proven results.

“For the people in Wyoming, you just need to be away from city lights,” she said. “You don't have to drive out that far, and you probably will be able to see them with your naked eye.”

Redmond said people need to look for a “white, wispy, moving cloud” between the constellations Ursa Major, the Big Dipper, and Cassiopeia. That’ll be in the northeastern sky.

Scientists are excited about the possibility of colorful aurora shows on Thursday and Friday nights and Wyoming is in the target zone. Conditions for this event are being compared to May, 2024, which provided some of the most colorful shows in decades.

You Still Here? Tuesday, October 4, 2022

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