Earth to be struck by second solar storm TODAY with 75% chance of radio, satellite and GPS blackouts, NOAA warns
A powerful, three-day long solar storm is expected to hit Earth today that could trigger 'power grid fluctuations,' experts have warned.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) noted that the geomagnetic storm, which is a major disturbance of Earth's magnetosphere, could disrupt satellite orbits, cause radio blackouts and push incredible northern light displays as far south as New York.
The upcoming storm is due to an active sunspot that has unleashed at least 18 flares this week.
This the same region that ejected a powerful stream of plasma, called a coronal mass ejections (CME), earlier this month that disrupted communications worldwide.
The event is just one portent of the high-impact solar weather to come, as the sun reaches its 'solar maximum,' astrophysicists have told DailyMail.com, the most energetic point of its recurring, 11-year solar cycle, next summer in July 2025.
Category G2 or 'moderate' solar storms are expected for Friday and Saturday, after today's more mild events, according to NOAA, which runs America's Space Weather Prediction Center.
The 'area of impact' is likely to extend from Earth's poles down to 55-degrees of 'geomagnetic latitude' — a region that includes northern parts of Idaho, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, New York, North Dakota, Washington, Wisconsin and Vermont.
While that puts those regions of the continental US at some level of risk for voltage issues to local power systems and disruptions to high frequency radio waves, there will be benefits as well.
The beautiful aerial phenomenon known as aurora borealis, or the northern lights, will also be visible in these regions, depending on local cloud conditions.
>'Aurora may be seen as low as New York to Wisconsin to Washington state,' NOAA's latest space weather advisory stated. Sunspot AR3664, now renamed AR3697, has reached a size that now competes with the sunspot responsible for the infamous 1895 Carrington event - which sent telegraph wires ablaze, shutting down international communication
Skywatchers living in those areas may want to take a few snaps even if they can't see this charged plasma light show in Earth's upper magnetosphere, according to meteorologist Bob Henson, particularly if they have a newer model of the iPhone.
'Some cameras (including newer iPhones) are sensitive enough to yield stunning auroral pix even when the aurora is nearly or totally invisible to the naked eye,' Henson posted to social site X earlier this month.
Although this weekend's solar storm is expected to be less intense than 'extreme (G5) geomagnetic conditions' of the powerful CMEs that hit Earth from May 10 to 13, more can be expected as the sun approaches its most turbulent phase of its cycle.
'We could easily get much bigger storms over the next year or two,' Dr Jonathan McDowell of Smithsonian and Harvard's Center for Astrophysics told DailyMail.com earlier this month.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-13476667/noaa-geomagnetic-storm-earth-power-grids-auroras-new-york.html