NOAA reports severe geomagnetic storms over weekend
ST. LOUIS – NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center said geomagnetic storms reached severe levels over the weekend. As this activity stems from the sun, it can leave impacts on Earth.
Solar activity occurred Friday evening around 8:30 p.m., according to Eric Gustafson, senior educator at the St. Louis Science Center Planetarium.
“There was a large X-class solar flare that was triggered by two sunspots. The results from that was a large coronal mass ejection, which is basically a big release of solar plasma that will enhance the solar wind,” Gustafson said. “By some standards, it was the largest CME since about 2017.”
As the coronal mass ejection, or CME, travels toward the Earth, it interacts with our magnetic field. When the charged particles get into our atmosphere, it creates auroras.
“In terms of any potential damages, (it is) pretty unlikely to see anything significant. More likely just to see the auroras as a result. And unfortunately, it didn’t favor us in terms of the America’s and parts of Europe but New Zealand did recently see some fairly intense auroral displays,” he said.
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Negative impacts of strong CME can include damage to satellites.
“You could lose radio communications. As the ionosphere absorbs more energy, that can cause drag on things like GPS satellites, so GPS systems can be affected as well,” Gustafson said.
More uncommon negative impacts are susceptibilities to the power grid and pipelines that can cause fairly significant damage.
“As the currents travel down some of the powerlines it can trip some of the safety features causing a power outage, damage transformers,” he said. “One of the last major occurrences of that was in 1989. There was a massive blackout in parts of Quebec.”
In terms of the auroras, while the storm was strong, it didn’t favor this side of the Earth.
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