A "strong" solar flare that launched off the sun Wednesday afternoon could cause some fluctuations in Earth's power grid and slight disturbances in satellites and radio transmissions on Friday and Saturday.
Major disruptions are not expected, even though the flare was classified as an "X-class" flare, which is at the high end of the solar flare scale. Wednesday's flare followed a weaker flare late Monday.
"We expect geomagnetic storm levels in the G2 (moderate) and G3 (strong) range," said Bill Murtagh, space weather forecaster for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
"G2-G3 geomagnetic storms can cause some problems for the (power) grid but are typically very manageable," Murtagh said in an e-mail Thursday morning. "We may also see some anomalies with satellites so satellite operators around the world have been notified. And problems with the accuracy of GPS have been observed with this level of storming."
Forecasters with NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center said the flare "caused impacts to high-frequency radio communications on Earth" Wednesday afternoon.
Intense flares such as the one that erupted Wednesday are often associated with coronal mass ejections, or "CME"s. A coronal mass ejection contains billions of tons of energetic hydrogen and helium ions as well as magnetic fields ejected from the sun's surface.The worst of the energetic particles streaming from the sun likely will miss Earth this time. But "any additional eruptions in the next few days will likely produce more disturbances in our geomagnetic field," Murtagh added.
One nice side effect of the solar storm is an expansion of the photogenic aurora borealis, or Northern Lights, across Canada and the northern U.S.
People in northern New England, the far northern Plains, and the Pacific Northwest should have the best views of the aurora.
Source:USA Today.
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