The Western Journal posted an article today about a solar flare forecasted for this weekend.
The article reports:
“Auroral activity will be high(++). Weather permitting, highly active auroral displays will be visible overhead from Inuvik, Yellowknife, Rankin and Iqaluit, to Portland OR, Cheyenne, Lincoln, Springfield, and New York City, and visible low on the horizon as far south as Carson City, Oklahoma City, and Raleigh,” according to the University of Alaska at Fairbanks.
The auroras at the poles occur when charged particles from the sun interact with Earth’s upper atmosphere, according to Space.com.
…The same solar flare that will spark the light show in the skies is expected to cause what the NOAA has classified as a strong geomagnetic storm on Saturday and Sunday, according to CNN. The storm is rated at a three on a five-point scale.
The impact of the storm could cause voltage irregularities and false alarms on some devices, NOAA warns. High-frequency radio blackouts and loss of radio contact on the side of the Earth facing the sun are also possible.
A strong solar flare can cause the same type of disruptions that would be caused by an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) attack.
The article notes:
“Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation. Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth’s atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground, however — when intense enough — they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel,” NASA wrote.
“This flare was classified as an X1-class flare. X-class denotes the most intense flares, while the number provides more information about its strength. An X2 is twice as intense as an X1, an X3 is three times as intense, and so on,” NASA wrote. “This was the second X-class flare of Solar Cycle 25, which began in Dec. 2019. A new solar cycle comes roughly every 11 years.”
The solar flare will allow much of the United States to see the Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights) at some point during the weekend. I am hoping the Lights will be visible this far south as they are beautiful.