A severe solar storm is expected to bring about an increase in the number of aurora borealis on Friday, with forecasts predicting the aurora may even be seen in the southern US state of Alabama.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center announced Thursday that a series of solar flares and eruptions from the sun could cause intense magnetic storms and “spectacular auroral displays” across Earth starting Friday night and into the weekend. .
This was the first severe geomagnetic storm watch announced by the agency since 2005.
“We have a rare event happening,” said Sean Dahl, service coordinator at the Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado. “We're a little concerned. We haven't seen this in a long time.”
Satellite and power grid operators are being advised to prepare, as strong geomagnetic storms have the power to disrupt not only satellites in space, but communications and power grids on Earth, Dahl said.
He said forecasters expect the storm could arrive as early as Friday around 8 p.m. ET.
“There's something happening 93 million miles away, so we're not very sure about the timing of these events,” Dahl said of Earth's distance from the sun.
NASA's Advanced Composition Explorer, a spacecraft orbiting about 1 million miles from Earth, will help forecasters measure the solar wind and better understand its timing and potential impacts. .
The Northern Lights, or Northern Lights, result from charged particles ejected from the Sun during solar storms. The colorful display is created when clouds of these energetic particles collide with Earth's magnetic field and interact with atoms and molecules in the planet's upper atmosphere.
Auroras typically illuminate the night sky at high latitudes, but during periods of high solar activity they can be spotted further south than usual.
The Space Weather Prediction Center forecast says the aurora could be seen “as far south as Alabama and Northern California” on Friday night.
The agency maintains the Aurora Dashboard, which provides short-term forecasts for the Northern Lights. If conditions are clear, the Northern Lights are best viewed from a dark location, far away from city lights.
As night fell over parts of Australia and Europe, early photos of dramatically colorful skies began to emerge.
Dahl said smartphones could be used to capture images of the aurora borealis in southern locations where the human eye can't see anything unusual.
Several “moderate to strong” solar flares have been detected since Wednesday morning, according to the Space Weather Prediction Center. Solar flares eject clouds of plasma and charged particles into space, called coronal mass ejections. At least five flares and associated coronal mass ejections appear to be heading toward Earth, the center said.
“Additional solar eruptions could cause geomagnetic storm conditions to persist into the weekend,” the statement said.
When this geomagnetic field and solar radiation is directed toward Earth, it can induce currents in high-voltage power lines and cause problems with power grid transformers.
One of the deadliest geomagnetic storms occurred in 1989, leaving about 6 million people without power for nine hours in Montreal, Canada, according to NASA. The event also affected parts of the northeastern United States and Sweden.
In 2002, a coronal mass ejection destroyed 38 commercial satellites.
The sun goes through an 11-year cycle from minimum to maximum activity. The current cycle, which began in late 2019, is expected to peak at maximum activity in July 2025, according to NOAA and NASA forecasts.
