Solar storms impacting New England farmers

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (WWLP) – The weather isn’t only unsettled on Earth, it’s also happening in other parts of our galaxy.

The sun is currently at a high in terms of solar energy. One of the impacts felt on Earth may affect farmers across New England. The sun’s energy cycle usually peaks once every 11 years. These peaks can result in solar storms that make it to Earth, like the G5 storm in May.

Jenny Powers with the Springfield Science Museum explains the magnitude of these storms, “These sunspots, the solar flares, and the Coronal mass are the biggest explosions that we can see in our own solar system, so that’s something really cool to get to watch as an astronomer too.”

Let’s understand how solar energy gets to Earth in the first place now there is a magnetic field that surrounds Earth so it can’t just come straight on now we were talking about those coronal mass ejections those solar flares, and they’re going to admit charge particles and electrons again you can’t come directly towards the earth.

It’s going to have to go around the magnetic field as its particles travel there mainly going to end up in the north or the south pole where the magnetic field is the weakest

Most people see this in the form of the Northern Lights or dropped cell service, but many industries can take huge losses. Many farmers experienced equipment malfunctions 3 months ago.

Shawn Dahl from the Space Weather Prediction Center told 22News how even brief solar storms can have significant consequences, “Things that were supposed to be accurate within a centimeter to being off by 12 feet which is why GPS became unusable for many of the farmers out there that were working.”

This period of high solar activity is known as Solar Cycle 25, which could go on for the next 2 years. The timing of this cycle’s peak is unknown, so we could be due for potential outages and wild farm equipment in the future.

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Jack Wu joined the 22News Storm Team in July 2023. Follow Jack on X @the_jackwu and view his bio to see more of his work.

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