Northern Lights Could Become More Frequent In The U.S.: Here's Why

ACROSS AMERICA — An extremely large and powerful geomagnetic storm that sent Americans on slow country drives looking for northern lights displays could become more frequent this year as our 4.5 billion-year-old yellow dwarf star reaches “solar maximum,” the mid-point in its roughly 11-year cycle.

Under usual conditions, the curtains of pink, green, red, purple and yellow lights aren’t seen outside of Earth’s polar regions. But last weekend, the aurora borealis was nothing short of epic, with the dazzling displays widely seen across the Northern Hemisphere and plungint as far south as Puerto Rico, the Bahamas and Mexico.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center estimates solar maximum will occur between late 2024 and early 2026. That almost certainly means more frequent and intense flares will be spewed from the sun’s hot, hot outer atmosphere more often as the peak approaches.

Geomagnetic storms start with the explosions, or solar flares, of superheated gases that can be as powerful as a billion hydrogen bombs. When this happens, the electron- and proton-charged magnetic particles hurtling toward our planet in a coronal mass ejection, or CME, can temporarily disrupt Earth’s magnetic fields, triggering auroras, but also potentially disrupting satellite systems and GPS and radio communications.

NOAA advised of such in a“very rare” geomagnetic storm warning last weekend, its first since 2003. The storm, originally a G4, was upgraded to G5 on NOAA’s 1-to-5 scale. The agency said at least five-directed CMEs collided with Earth through Sunday, NOAA said in its warning, explaining the clusters were “magnetically complex and much larger than Earth.”

Here are five things to know:

GPS Disruptions Stalled Farmers

Last weekend’s geomagnetic storm did cause some minor headaches. Some airplanes were rerouted from areas reporting “voltage irregularities” to avoid any communication disruptions, and SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service said on its website Saturday that service had been degraded and its team was investigating. CEO Elon Musk wrote on the social platform X overnight that its satellites were “under a lot of pressure, but holding up so far.”

The Federal Emergency Management Agency said none of its regions reported any significant impact from the storms, and the Energy Department said it was not aware any electrical disruptions.

Farmers trying to get their spring planting done noticed, though.

“While we can appreciate the beauty of the crazy northern lights we had on Friday night and everyone’s gorgeous photos, it wasn’t a good night for us,” a farmer from Vergas, Minnesota, posted on Facebook. “Like many other farmers, the solar storm brought us to a standstill because our GPS units wouldn’t work. There was too much interference. Quite crazy actually!”

By 8 a.m. Saturday, “we were able to roll again,” the post said.

NOAA says GPS on modern automobiles aren’t generally affected, but farm implements— John Deere’s and other those made by other companies — require centimeter-level precision. Landmark Implement, which sells John Deere equipment in the Midwest, explained that GPS was affected on some John Deere implements during the most severe geomagnetic storm in two decades.

In a statement, the company called the storm a “historic event” rather than a continual and frequent occurrence, and said it was searching for a “tool to help predict this in the future so that we can attempt to give our customers an alert that this issue may be coming.”

It described the storm as a “historic event” rather than something it would have to “continue to battle frequently.”

Terry Griffin, an associate professor of agricultural economics at Kansas State University, told The New York Times that even if storms of that intensity are infrequent, they still pose a threat to agriculture because the majority of U.S. farms practice precision agriculture with GPS-enabled implements.

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“This was the first time we’ve had geomagnetic storms that were so strong, and we were reliant upon GPS,” Griffin told The Times, adding that systems using machine vision and artificial intelligence and more localized navigation systems are among alternative technologies in the development phase.

Power Grid Could Fail

Although unusually large, last weekend’s G5 storm wasn’t the strongest on record. That was the Carrington Event, an 1858 solar storm that spewed electrified gas and subatomic particles toward Earth, causing telegraph lines to spark and electrocuting operators. The northern lights danced around the globe, extending as far south as Jamaica.

A geomagnetic storm in 1989 that caused the electrical grid to collapse in Quebec, Canada, was about three times smaller than the Carrington Event. The storm also damaged a transformer in New Jersey, leaving 5 million people without power for nine hours.

“Today, a geomagnetic storm of the same intensity as the Carrington Event would affect far more than telegraph wires and could be catastrophic,” David Wallace, an assistant clinical professor of electrical engineering at Mississippi State University, wrote for The Conversation

“With the ever-growing dependency on electricity and emerging technology, any disruption could lead to trillions of dollars of monetary loss and risk to life dependent on the systems. The storm would affect a majority of the electrical systems that people use every day,” he wrote.

Geomagnetically induced currents generated by severe storms, which can be in excess of 100 amperes, can flow into transformers, relays, sensors and other electrical components that feed into the power grid.

“One hundred amperes is equivalent to the electrical service provided to many households,” Wallace wrote. “Currents this size can cause internal damage in the components, leading to large scale power outages.”

An ‘Internet Apocalypse’ Is Possible

As solar activity ramps up, scientists at George Mason University have warned of the potential for an “internet apocalypse” in which electronic communications suddenly and with little or no warning stop working.

Collaborating with peers at the Naval Research Laboratory under a $13.6 million Department of the Navy grant, scientists are trying to learn more about the effects of violent and more frequent solar storms 93 million miles from Earth on internet and satellite communications.

• Related: Solar Storms In 2024 Could Knock Out Internet For Months

The implications of solar activity strong enough to knock out satellite communications could be profound, from disrupting military operations and energy grids to complicating life for millions of Americans who use smart-home technology, rely on GPS to guide them from Point A to Point B, and go online to conduct business, order essential medications and shop for everything they eat and wear.

The internet came of age during a relatively quiet period of solar activity, but violent storms predicted to increase over the next decade could test its backbone.

“The internet was simply not designed to handle this level of communication interference, and, consequently, is considered a very ‘soft’ type of infrastructure,” principal investigator Peter A. Becker, a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy within the university’s College of Science, said in a news release.

The intensity of the sun’s fury increases daily, with Solar Cycle 25’s expected peak this year. NOAA says the peak is earlier and more intense than previously thought.

“Hence, the period from 2024 to 2028 is a time when the entire internet could conceivably be knocked out for a period of weeks to months in the event of a really extreme solar flare,” Becker said.
Because of the world’s heavy dependence on the internet for information, communications and global commerce, such a scenario could create “an unprecedented disaster for modern society, potentially triggering a worldwide recession,” Becker warned.

When Is The Next Geomagnetic Storm?

The simple answer is, there’s no way of knowing that precisely. People who are interested might want to bookmark the Space Weather Prediction Center’s aurora dashboard, which shows areas likely to see northern lights and associated warning and watch statements.

The recent G5 storm was a rare event, and it’s difficult to predict when, or if, we’ll see solar activity of the same intensity, even as Solar Cycle 25 reaches maximum.

“Friday night’s storm reached superstorm level, something that happens roughly one in 20 years, on average,” Mathew Owens, a space physicist at the University of Reading, told The Washington Post. “That doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll have to wait 20 years for the next one. That’s an average rate and these things are quasi-random.”

Solar activity has continued in the days following the spectacular weekend displays, which has been traced to activity on sunspot AR3664. On Tuesday, the sunspot unleashed an X8.8-class solar flare, the strongest yet since December 2019, at approximately 12:51 p.m. EDT. It just rotated away from Earth, and NOAA issued a G2-level geomagnetic storm watch related to the flare Wednesday, saying storms of this intensity are not uncommon.

However, AR3664 could spit out more bubbling masses of charged plasma when it reappears in a few weeks, according to the National Weather Service.

Space weather scientists expect the sun to remain active through the end of the year and fairly active for a few more years.

The next such occurrence could be any time, or decades into the future, Owens told The Post, noting that 170 years of records suggest a G5 storm statistically has about a 5 percent chance of happening every given year.

However, Shawn Dahl, the service coordinator for NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center, told The Post that while weekend geomagnetic storms didn’t approach the size of the one that triggered the Carrington Event 165 years ago, “we are overdue for an event similar” to that level.

“Even though it’s unlikely, we’ll still be at the highest risk for similar storms [to Friday night] or potentially even a greater one,” Dahl told the newspaper.

What Should People Do To Prepare?

The National Weather Service has a list of recommendations to help people prepare for extreme solar storms and the potential loss of electricity. To start, build an emergency kit and make a family communications plan.

Also, prepare as for any other disaster:

• Freeze plastic containers of water, or at least refrigerate them. The frozen or chilled water can keep food cold during a temporary power outage.
• Medication that requires refrigeration should be OK during a power outage that lasts several hours, but if you’re unsure of that, contact your pharmacist or doctor.
• Keep the car gas tank at least half full because gas stations rely on electricity to power their pumps.

• If you have a garage, find out where the manual release lever of your electric garage door opener is located and how to operate it. Garage doors can be heavy, so know that you may need help to lift it.
• Keep a key to your house with you if you regularly use the garage as the primary means of entering your home, in case the garage door will not open.
• Keep extra batteries for your phone in a safe place or purchase a solar-powered or hand crank charger. These chargers are good emergency tools to keep your laptop and other small electronics working in the event of a power outage. If you own a car, purchase a car phone charger because you can charge your phone if you lose power at your home.
• If you have a traditional landline phone, keep at least one non-cordless receiver in your home because it will work even if you lose power.
• Prepare a family contact sheet. This should include at least one out-of-town contact that may be better able to reach family members in an emergency.
• Make back-up copies of important digital data and information, automatically if possible, or at least weekly