Two unexpected phenomena are clashing in the skies over Oregon tonight.

A new magnetic storm means another good shot at viewing the aurora borealis – the strongest chance since the last big show of northern lights in May. However, the event is overlapping with a summer rainstorm that’s lingering over much of Oregon, potentially barring the lights from view.

The aurora may be visible Monday night for about the northeastern half of Oregon, according to the Space Weather Prediction Center. At the same time, the National Weather Service is forecasting clouds and rain across most of that area. The northern lights should be strong again Tuesday night, and maybe even Wednesday, but the view line is expected to shift north, excluding most of the state.

Forecasts for the northern lights are notoriously tricky – weather forecasts much less so. Oregonians hoping to see the aurora will likely be better off trying to look skyward Tuesday or Wednesday night, when the clouds begin to part.

According to Spaceweather.com, the aurora was triggered by a “cannibal” coronal mass ejection, a mass of solar storms that flings a large amount of plasma and radiation into space. When those storms collide with Earth, they cause geomagnetic storms, which are disturbances in our planet’s magnetic field.

This week’s event is not expected to be as strong as the one in May, Forbes reported, though the two were created by similar solar storms.

–Jamie Hale covers travel and the outdoors and co-hosts the Peak Northwest podcast. Reach him at 503-294-4077, jhale@oregonian.com or @HaleJamesB.

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Dillon Gabriel will lead Oregon on the field against Ohio State this football season, but it could have turned out that the quarterback wore the other uniform in that game, he revealed.

Gabriel said that he had a good conversation with Buckeyes head coach Ryan Day about potentially transferring to Ohio State this offseason before ultimately deciding on Oregon.

“It was good,” Gabriel said. “I think with anything, throughout that process, it’s just gaining information on one another. But I think the recruiting process is what it is, and I think everyone that was a quarterback in the portal was able to have conversations with different schools.”

The quarterback said he didn’t want to drag out his transfer process after leaving Oklahoma while Day was interested in watching how Devin Brown played in the Buckeyes’ Cotton Bowl appearance.

As a result, Gabriel elected to make the faster decision and pick Oregon before Ohio State even got on the field against Missouri in that game.

“I think going through my third recruiting process, I know it’s a stressful time for anyone who’s transferred,” Gabriel said of his process.

“Although there’s beauty in new beginnings and all that, everyone knows the stress and a lot that comes with it, whether it’s the moving, the moving companies, the moving in, there’s just a lot that comes with it. So the faster you can make a decision and feel good about it, be decisive, then it allows you to act accordingly.”

Asked if he would have picked Ohio State if Day was willing to take him on in December, the quarterback replied: “I don’t even know… That’s in the past. I’m focused on the now.”

The now includes Gabriel stepping into the starting quarterback role at Oregon as the school makes its debut in the Big Ten this season.

Oregon’s offense posted over 500 yards and scored over 40 points per game last season and retains the bulk of a wide receiver corps considered the best in college football.

Gabriel’s passing output and rushing capacity bring the Ducks another dynamic element to add to that offense, coming off a 3,660-plus yard showing with 30 touchdowns at OU while throwing just six interceptions last fall.

Ohio State responded to the departure of Kyle McCord at quarterback with the addition of Will Howard, the veteran Kansas State signal caller coming off a personal-best effort with 24 touchdown passes last season.

Gabriel and Howard will meet in October in one of college football’s most impactful quarterback matchups in a test to see which school made the right decision.

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–

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The pilot of a single-engine air tanker that crashed Thursday near eastern Oregon’s 142,000-acre Falls Fire was identified Sunday as James Bailey Maxwell, 74.

On Sunday, the U.S. Forest Service described Maxwell in a statement as “an experienced pilot who had spent 54 years of his life flying and who had logged approximately 24,000 hours of flight time.”

“The wildland firefighting community is mourning the loss of one of their own,” the service said.

An official Facebook page for the Falls Fire said the plane was BLM-contracted, referring to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, and that it had been assigned to help with the firefighting response to the Falls Fire.

The Federal Aviation Administration was investigating the cause of the crash.

Maxwell is survived by family in Idaho, Oregon and Washington, the forest service said.

The plane went down near Seneca, Oregon, shortly after 1 p.m. Thursday with only the pilot aboard, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. The NTSB said in a statement that someone reported an autopilot issue on the aircraft before it collided with the terrain below.

Search efforts were launched in the area, and the plane, along with the pilot’s remains, were found, a U.S. Bureau of Land Management spokesperson said Friday.

The NTSB described the aircraft as an Air Tractor AT-802A. In a statement, the forest service said the aircraft is the smallest in Oregon’s fleet of firefighting tankers and can maneuver into hard-to-reach areas to drop its capacity of 800 gallons of water or suppressant.

The Falls Fire, which is 57% contained, has burned more than 142,000 acres since its start by human hands on July 10, federal incident management officials said in a daily statement on Sunday. It was one of dozens of wildfires burning in the West.

The National Interagency Fire Center said 56 wildfires were burning without containment on Sunday in the nation’s Northwest.