Grids on high alert for another solar storm
Print Edition
The Northern and Southern Lights, Mother Nature’s kaleidoscopic treat, was to make a repeat performance late yesterday.
A solar storm was to slam into the earth yesterday due to a solar flare earlier in the week, with the potential to disrupt power to millions of homes and businesses and satellite service, according to the US Space Weather Prediction Center.
That will be the second solar storm to hit the earth this week.
On Monday, a severe geomagnetic storm sparked an intense aurora, the natural electric phenomenon that creates bright and colorful light displays in the skies, that was visible much further from the poles than usual.
In northern latitudes, the Northern Lights are usually only visible in Canada, Alaska and northern Europe but were seen as far south as Washington DC on Monday, according to local reports.
In the southern hemisphere, reports from Australia said the Southern Lights — usually only visible in Tasmania — were visible across much of the country.
Yesterday, the Space Weather Prediction Center said the Northern Lights should be visible across most of Canada and in the US northern tier states of North Dakota, Minnesota, Michigan and northern Maine.
The storms that began on Monday reached the “severe” G4 level on the Space Weather Prediction Center’s geomagnetic storm scale.
The center measures geomagnetic storms on a five-level scale, with G1 a minor storm and G5 an extreme storm.
A G4 storm can cause possible voltage control problems for some power systems and degrade satellite navigation and radio service, the center said yesterday.
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