Intense Geomagnetic Storm Hits Earth, May Cause Widespread Northern Lights and Disrupt Infrastructure

Takeaways:

• A severe geomagnetic storm is in progress, with the potential to display the Northern Lights as far south as Alabama and Northern California.

• The storm, reaching level 4 on NOAA's 5-point scale, poses risks to infrastructure such as power grids, communications, and satellite operations.

• NOAA has observed at least seven coronal mass ejections (CMEs) from the sun, with the first impacts arriving early Friday afternoon and conditions expected to persist until Sunday.

• The Space Weather Prediction Center has issued its first "severe" Geomagnetic Storm Watch since January 2005 due to two large and magnetically complex sunspots.

• The geomagnetic storm could disrupt high frequency radio communications, cause voltage irregularities in power systems, and affect GPS systems, with the peak expected to occur late Friday into Saturday morning across North America.

References:

[1] 'Severe' solar storm arrives, could to trigger Northern Lights as far south as Alabama tonight. Link

[2] Northern lights forecast: Solar storm could make aurora visible in NYC. Link

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