Just hours after many woke up to dazzling pre-dawn displays of the aurora borealis or aurora australis (better known as the Northern or Southern Lights, respectively), NOAA and the National Weather Service say the ethereal show may not be over.
The agency’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) said in a statement Monday that G4 or severe geomagnetic storm conditions were observed around 11 am ET and may continue through the evening.
The geomagnetic unrest can be traced to a series of at least five solar flares and corresponding coronal mass ejections (CMEs) that were unleashed from the outer layers of the sun since Saturday.
“Potential impacts of this level of storming include degradation of high frequency communications at high latitudes and increased drag on satellites in low earth orbit,” the SWPC says. “A severe geomagnetic storm includes the potential for aurora to be seen faintly as far south as Alabama and Northern California.”
Forecasters currently place the probability of a strong (G4) or extreme (G5) storm at about 15 percent for Monday evening.
Forecasting space weather can be about as fickle as forecasting the terrestrial weather. The historic aurora displays seen in May were far stronger than expected, while expected strong storms in recent weeks have fizzled.
But the light show seen in the early hours of Monday make it worthwhile to keep an eye to the sky this evening, especially as the plasma-powered fireworks may be accompanied by the peak of the Perseid meteor shower.
Aurora sightings Monday have so far been reported in at least 30 US states, including as far south as Texas and Mississippi. The general orientation of Earth’s magnetic field tends to favor the southeastern US more than the southwest, but plenty of Northern Lights have been spotted in places like Tucson, Arizona this year.
Bottom line, be sure to look up when you’re outside this evening, regardless of where you are. Even if you don’t see anything at first, your camera might, as most are more sensitive to the display than human eyes. So snap a few photos of the dark, clear sky to see what you can glimpse.
