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Severe solar storm expected to supercharge northern lights on Friday

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SEVERE SOLAR STORM EXPECTED TO SUPERCHARGE NORTHERN LIGHTS ON FRIDAY

The Space Weather Prediction Center has issued its first "severe geomagnetic
storm watch" since 2005. Auroras might be seen as far south as Alabama.
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Solar storm may bring northern lights to U.S. but also disrupt communications
05:46
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May 10, 2024, 4:17 PM GMT+2 / Updated May 10, 2024, 11:11 PM GMT+2
By Denise Chow and Evan Bush

A severe solar storm is expected to supercharge the northern lights on Friday,
with forecasts indicating that auroras could be seen as far south in the United
States as Alabama.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction
Center said Thursday that a series of solar flares and eruptions from the sun
could trigger severe geomagnetic storms and “spectacular displays of aurora” on
Earth from Friday evening through the weekend.




It was the first severe geomagnetic storm watch the agency has issued since
2005.

“We have a rare event on our hands,” said Shawn Dahl, a 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."


Northern lights appear over the Dreisamtal valley in the Black Forest near
Freiburg, Germany on May 10, 2024.Valentin Gensch / dpa / picture alliance via
Getty Images

Because strong geomagnetic storms have the power to disrupt communications and
power grids on Earth, as well as satellites in space, Dahl said satellite and
grid operators have been notified to prepare.

He said forecasters predict the storm could arrive as soon as about 8 p.m. ET on
Friday.



"We’re less certain on the timing of these events, because we’re talking about
something for 93 million miles away," Dahl said, referring to the distance from
the sun to the Earth.

A NASA spacecraft orbiting about 1 million miles from Earth, called the Advanced
Composition Explorer, will help forecasters measure the solar wind and
understand the timing and potential effects more precisely.





The northern lights, or aurora borealis, come from charged particles that spew
from the sun during solar storms. The colorful displays are created when clouds
of these energetic particles slam into Earth’s magnetic field and interact with
the atoms and molecules in the planet’s upper atmosphere.

The northern lights typically light up the night sky at high latitudes, but
during intense periods of solar activity, they can be spotted farther south than
usual.

The Space Weather Prediction Center’s forecast said it’s possible that auroras
on Friday night could be seen “as far south as Alabama and Northern California.”

The agency maintains an aurora dashboard that provides short-term forecasts of
the northern lights. If conditions are clear, auroras are best viewed from
locations that are dark and far from city lights.



As night descended on parts of Australia and Europe, early photos began to
emerge of dramatically colorful skies.



Dahl said smartphones might even be able to capture imagery of the aurora at
southern locations where the human eye can't see anything unusual.

According to the Space Weather Prediction Center, several “moderate to strong”
solar flares have been detected since Wednesday morning. Solar flares unleash
clouds of plasma and charged particles, called coronal mass ejections, into
space. At least five flares and their associated coronal mass ejections appear
to be directed at Earth, the center said.

“Additional solar eruptions could cause geomagnetic storm conditions to persist
through the weekend,” it said in a statement.

When directed at Earth, this geomagnetic and solar radiation can induce currents
on high-voltage transmission lines and cause problems for transformers on the
power grid.

One of the most damaging geomagnetic storms occurred in 1989, when roughly 6
million people in Montreal, Canada, lost power for nine hours, according to
NASA. Some parts of the northeastern U.S. and Sweden were also affected in that
event.



In 2002, a coronal mass ejection knocked out 38 commercial satellites.

The sun goes through 11-year cycles from minimum to maximum activity. The
current cycle, which began in late 2019, is predicted to peak with maximum
activity in July 2025, according to NOAA and NASA forecasts.


Denise Chow

Denise Chow is a reporter for NBC News Science focused on general science and
climate change.

Evan Bush

Evan Bush is a science reporter for NBC News. He can be reached at
Evan.Bush@nbcuni.com.



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