PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) — An unusually strong solar storm hitting Earth produced stunning displays of color in the skies across parts of the Philadelphia region early Saturday morning.
The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued a rare severe geomagnetic storm warning when a solar outburst reached Earth on Friday afternoon, hours sooner than anticipated.
This is NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center’s first severe geomagnetic storm watch in nearly 20 years.
The solar flares are associated with coronal mass ejections (CMEs) directed toward Earth. CMEs are expulsions of plasma and magnetic field from the sun’s corona, the outermost part of the sun’s atmosphere, according to the Space Weather Prediction Center.
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When these ejections head toward Earth, taking as long as days or as little as 15 hours, they cause geomagnetic storms, which are disturbances in the magnetic field around the planet.
“Then fast-moving particles slam into our thin, high atmosphere, colliding with Earth’s oxygen and nitrogen particles,” according to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “As these air particles shed the energy they picked up from the collision, each atom starts to glow in a different color,” giving us the aurora borealis in the northern hemisphere and the aurora australis in the southern hemisphere.
Quicker clearing of skies just before dawn in our region allowed for better chances to see the northern lights Saturday. The celestial show was captured from South Jersey to northeastern Pennsylvania.
The geomagnetic storm is expected to last through the weekend. You can share your photos with Action News here.
The SWPC recommends traveling away from city lights to experience the full brightness of the aurora and to be looking at the skies within two hours of midnight, between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. local time.
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These storms also have the ability to potentially disrupt communications, the electric power grid, radio signals and satellite operations. As of Saturday, there were no immediate reports of disruptions.
Severe geomagnetic storms in October 2003 caused the northern lights to be seen as far south as Texas but it affected more than half of all Earth-orbiting spacecrafts and temporarily disrupted satellite TV and radio services. Additionally, several deep space missions had to be put in safe mode or completely shut down to prevent them from being disrupted.
ABC News and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
More than $22 million in “Money Match” checks were mailed to nearly 100,000 Pennsylvanians, the treasury said.
In a news release on Thursday, the Pennsylvania Treasury said people should be on the lookout for the checks, which are part of the Pennsylvania Money Match program. Treasurer Stacy Garrity said to cash or deposit the checks “promptly.”
The first Pennsylvania Money Match checks, totaling more than $1.7 million, are now on the way to Pennsylvanians’ mailboxes. Pennsylvania Money Match is a new program that allows Treasury to return certain unclaimed property to rightful owners automatically, which was approved unanimously by the General Assembly and signed by the Governor last year.
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“I want Pennsylvanians to know that this is a real check, it is real money, and it belongs to them,” Garrity said in the news release. “And as always, I still encourage everyone to regularly search for unclaimed property online, as many claims will not qualify for the Money Match process.”
With the mailing of the year’s last batch of checks, more than $50 million will have been returned automatically to Pennsylvanians.
What are Money Match checks?
The program allows the state treasury to automatically return unclaimed property valued up to $500 owned by a single individual. Before the program was created in 2024, residents themselves had to seek out unclaimed property.
“I’m thrilled to continue this program as we work hard to get more money back to its rightful owners,” Garrity said in the news release.
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However, if the property has multiple owners or is valued higher than $500, Pennsylvanians still need to file a claim.
What is unclaimed property?
Unclaimed property includes dormant bank accounts, uncashed checks, forgotten stocks, rebates and insurance policies, among other things. It can also include the contents of abandoned safe deposit boxes.
According to the state treasury, more than one in 10 Pennsylvanians is owed some of the $5 billion in unclaimed property in the treasury’s care, and the average value of a claim is more than $1,000.
Unclaimed property scam
On its website, the state treasury has a warning about scammers using text messages to target potential unclaimed property claimants.
The department “never reaches out to people in regard to any program, including unclaimed property, via unsolicited text messages.”
A special weather statement was issued by the National Weather Service on Friday at 10:06 a.m. until 1 p.m. for Warren, McKean, Elk, Cameron, Clearfield, Cambria and Somerset counties.
“Temperatures will drop below the freezing mark through midday with rain showers quickly changing to snow showers. Blustery winds may dry off roads and other paved surfaces, but any residual water from previous rain or melting snow could freeze up and result in slick spots through the afternoon,” explains the weather service.
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