The rare aurora borealis or “northern lights” in the southern US could be visible Friday thanks to the first severe geomagnetic storm forecast since 2005, which may also impact infrastructure including satellites, the power grid and even pipelines.
Space weather forecasters from NOAA and the National Weather Service have issued a watch for a strong G4 or severe storm starting later on Friday. That’s when multiple coronal mass ejections (CMEs) let loose by the sun earlier this week are expected to merge as they arrive and blast earth’s magnetosphere.
CMEs are explosive blasts of charged plasma from the sun’s outer layer that often accompany solar flares. When they impact our magnetic field, the result can be bright auroral displays near the poles. Often the stronger the storm, the further toward the equator the displays can reach. Such storms are measured on a scale from G1 to G5.
“(G4) is pretty extraordinary. It’s a very rare event to happen,” Shawn Dahl, service coordinator for NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center, said in a call with reporters Friday morning.
Technically, there have been a handful of G4-level events in the past five years, but NOAA staff described them as “quite weak” and comparatively brief, whereas the storm forecast this week is expected to be significant and may extend into the weekend.
“The activity is not over,” Dahl added.
He noted that after at least five CMEs were directed toward Earth on Thursday, another was seen overnight. Analysis has not yet revealed if this additional burst is also heading our direction.
Dahl said there could be some infrastructure effects on satellite operators and the power grid in North America.
NOAA space scientist Robert Steenburgh said a geomagnetic storm can “induce current into conductors… including the power grid and pipelines.”
Essentially, very long stretches of conductive material, like a metal pipeline or high voltage transmission lines, can get hit with fluctuating pulses of energy that can overload systems and lead to equipment failures.
“SWPC has notified the operators of these systems so they can take protective action,” NOAA said in a statement.
Such outages have happened during geomagnetic storms in the past, but our technological environment has evolved quite a bit in recent years, to include thousands more satellites, like the growing Starlink constellation launched by Elon Musk and SpaceX. It’s also unclear how vulnerable aging parts of our electrical grid may be.
Developing story…
