Most extreme solar storm in 20 years brings beautiful northern lights

“I started shooting at the end of blue hour and could see some hints of aurora on the camera screen (some purple). Then it just went crazy!” photographer Gwenael Blanck, located in central France, wrote on spaceweather.com. “The entire sky was pink on the northern horizon. The colour and structure were visible to the naked eye. Utterly crazy!!! And it was only the beginning!”

Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) also warned of potential disruptions in satellite and radio communications as well as power grid operations.

Geomagnetic storms are created when a surge of particles and plasma from the sun temporarily jostle Earth’s magnetosphere, sometimes resulting in the northern lights or technology disruptions. NOAA categorizes geomagnetic storms on a scale of G1 to G5, where G5 is the most severe.

The agency anticipated a severe G4 storm, but it has exceeded forecasts. Around 7 p.m. Eastern time Friday, the storm elevated to the G5 level. The last time a storm of this extreme severity hit Earth was in October 2003, resulting in power outages in Sweden and damaged transformers in South Africa.

The storm continued for several hours at varying strengths, ranging from moderate to severe.

Forecasts anticipated the severe storm would bring aurora displays unusually far south in the Northern Hemisphere. In Europe, the northern lights filled skies as far south as France, Spain, Italy, Austria, southern Switzerland and London. In the United States, people have reported sightings in Central Virginia’s Blue Ridge Parkway, Colorado, Kentucky, North Carolina, New Mexico, Mississippi, Florida and Texas.

In the Southern Hemisphere, aurora were photographed in Chile, Argentina, New Zealand and India, where they are known as aurora australis or the southern lights.

The intense geomagnetic activity is the result of several eruptions from the sun’s surface, known as coronal mass ejections. At least six erupted from the sun earlier in the week, sending a punch of solar particles and the sun’s magnetic field toward Earth.

Some of the solar particles travel along our planet’s magnetic field lines into the upper atmosphere, exciting nitrogen and oxygen molecules, and releasing photons of light in different colors — or the aurora.

At lower latitudes, red auroras are more common because red occurs at higher altitudes and can be seen farther away from the poles.

Geomagnetic activity is expected to persist this weekend as more coronal mass ejections hit Earth, although it may be at a less intense level.