Geomagnetic storm could make northern lights visible from northern Illinois

Keep an eye to the sky Friday night: The NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center has issued a severe, G4-level geomagnetic storm watch for Friday evening through mid-day Sunday, which means a clear night could make aurora visible as far south as Alabama and northern California.

The aurora are caused by large sunspot clusters that produced several moderate to strong solar flares starting at 4 a.m. Wednesday. At least five of those flairs were associated with coronal mass ejections that appear to be directed toward Earth.

Coronal mass ejections are explosions of plasma and magnetic fields from the sun’s corona. They cause geomagnetic storms when they are directed at Earth, and can impact infrastructure in near-Earth orbit and on Earth’s surface, potentially disrupting communications, the electric power grid, navigation, radio and satellite operations, according to a Friday news release from the NOAA.

The NOAA said three severe geomagnetic storms have occurred since this solar cycle began in December 2019, the last of which was on March 23. The last G5, or extreme geomagnetic storm, was in October 2003. That storm resulted in power outages in Sweden and damaged power transformers in South Africa. This is the first G4 level geomagnetic storm watch the Space Weather Prediction Center has issued since 2005.