Filament of solar material from Sun erupting into space as a coronal mass ejection (CME) on August 31, 2012. Creative commons.
If you missed the northern lights over the Bay Area last October, the Sun has a treat in store. The colorful show will return June 2, visible as far south as Georgia and Northern California. Are you close enough to view the aurora? It isn’t common at this latitude, so set your cameras for a long exposure and watch science do its thing.
Aurora Borealis? At this time of year? At this time of day? In this part of the country? Localized entirely within your kitchen?
According to my first grade teacher Ms. Talley, aurora borealis is limited to Earth’s northernmost latitudes, especially in the Arctic. It’s unusual for them to extend further south, taking significant if not disruptive solar flares to broaden their horizons. Flares like the one responsible for June’s upcoming display come in categories G1–G5, G5 representing the most severe. A typical aurora hovers around G1–G2, restricting it to the polar regions. The southern equivalent is called aurora australis (thanks, Ms. Talley!).
The geomagnetic storm scale helps assesses the anticipated impact of a coronal mass ejection. The incoming storm is a “severe G4.” Weather.gov
The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Association’s (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center rated the incoming magnetic storm a severe G4. Scientists call these energetic bursts of stellar plasma Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs). A G5 CME lashed Earth with charged magnetic particles this time last year, bringing aurora borealis to the Caribbean. It was powerful enough to disrupt air traffic communications in aviation departments throughout the exposed regions. This latest electromagnetic disturbance, hurtling toward us at a glacial 1 million MPH, erupted from the surface of the Sun on Friday.
Sometimes the Sun tries to send us back to the Stone Age
“Not something you see every day.” From the aurora’s last appearance in October 2024, Windy Hill, San Mateo County, California. Creative commons.
It’s random when it comes to solar flares and CMEs. Sunspots wander the star’s roiling surface, firing from any which way without warning, an astronomical shot in the dark. When you factor in Earth’s fixed orbit, it’s a wonder the northern lights happen at all. It’s another thing to get hit with a G4-G5. The worst CME to strike in recent times was the legendary Carrington Event of 1859. It caused telegraph lines to shed sparks. Operators received nasty shocks, and papers caught fire. If the Carrington Event occurred today, our electricity-dependent infrastructure could collapse.
NBC Bay Area reports short-term radio communication troubles were already occurring ahead of the storm on Saturday. The rippling aurora occurs because of charged solar particles interacting with nitrogen and oxygen molecules in Earth’s ionosphere, sort of like in a neon sign. The flare is in something like a Goldilocks zone, strong enough to give us a show but not one that will wreck our electric grid. Our skies should start to glow pink and red starting the night of June 1.
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