An unusually strong solar storm headed toward Earth could produce northern lights in the U.S. and potentially disrupt communications this weekend.

An unusually strong solar storm headed toward Earth could produce northern lights in the U.S. and potentially disrupt communications this weekend.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued a rare geomagnetic storm watch — the first in nearly 20 years. The watch starts Friday and lasts all weekend.

NOAA is calling this an unusual event, pointing out that the flares seem to be associated with a sunspot that’s 16 times the diameter of Earth. An extreme geomagnetic storm in 2003 took out power in Sweden and damaged power transformers in South Africa.

The latest storm could produce northern lights as far south in the U.S. as Alabama and Northern California, according to NOAA.

  • Carmakazi@lemmy.worldEnglish
    12·
    6 months ago

    A solar storm of that scale wouldn’t just take down Facebook and Twitter for a while, it could destroy critical power infrastructure around the globe that would take months to repair. People would die.

    • SuiXi3D@fedia.io
      91·
      6 months ago

      And the state of Texas would make the survivors pay for it instead of the power companies that refused to use previous funding to implement preventive measures.