A second chance to see the magnificent auroras produced by a series of solar flares and coronal mass ejections do sol will arrive on Saturday night, in case you missed last night’s spectacle.
Auroras could be seen as far south as Alabama on Saturday, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Space Weather Prediction Center. The best viewing will be across the Ohio River Valley, through the Midwest and into the Pacific Northwest.
Increased solar activity created stunning displays of dancing green, purple and red lights in Friday night skies across the Northern Hemisphere.
“I’m going to come out and say it: I don’t think it’s going to be that strong,” Bill Murtagh, program coordinator at the Space Weather Prediction Center, told CNN on Saturday.
“It was extraordinary. Now we have a few more of these eruptions coming… It’s so rare to get as strong as last night. However, we expect to see stronger storms.”
In general, it’s a good idea to start looking right after sunset. Weather, of course, is key, as cloud cover can limit the visibility of the aurora.
“Don’t worry about it because it’s not like an eclipse. This is a multi-day event,” said CNN meteorologist Chad Myers.
“It will be visible across most of North America, maybe not as far as the Gulf Coast, but it will be close.”
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Cloudy conditions will persist from the Rockies to Texas and the northern Gulf Coast, as well as much of the Northeast.
The Space Weather Prediction Center, a division of the National Weather Service, observed conditions of an extreme geomagnetic storm at 6:54 p.m. ET on Friday night, reaching a severity level of 5 out of 5. The last time a A solar storm of this magnitude hit Earth in October 2003, resulting in power outages in Sweden and damaged transformers in South Africa, according to the center.
Signs of a severe geomagnetic storm, or level 4, were first observed by the center’s scientists at 12:37 p.m. ET, when a major disturbance was detected in Earth’s magnetic field. Previously, the center issued a geomagnetic storm warning on Thursday night, the first such warning issued since January 2005.
But the forecast was updated after scientists observed conditions in the G5, or extreme geomagnetic storm, on Friday night.
As the Sun approaches peak activity in its 11-year cycle, known as maximum solarLater this year, researchers observed increasingly intense solar flares erupting from the fiery orb.
Increased solar activity causes auroras that dance around Earth’s poles, known as the northern lights, or aurora borealis, and the southern lights, or aurora australis. When energized particles from coronal mass ejections hit Earth’s magnetic field, they interact with gases in the atmosphere to create different colored lights in the sky.
“During the night, auroras were visible across much of the United States. Weather permitting, they may be visible again tonight,” the Space Weather Prediction Center said Saturday.
“The extreme geomagnetic storm continues and will persist until at least Sunday.”
The storm can affect the electrical grid as well as satellite and high-frequency radio communications. The Biden administration has said it is monitoring the possibility of impacts.
Bill Nye, the science guyeducator and engineer, said the massive solar storm could cause problems in a world that relies so heavily on electricity.
Nye noted that a solar storm in 1859, known as the Carrington Event, lasted a week and severely affected telegraphic communications, which at the time were state-of-the-art.
“The other thing, folks, that poses a real danger to our technological society, unlike 1859, is how dependent we are on electricity and our electronics and so on,” Nye said. “None of us in the developed world could go long without electricity.”
Systems are in place to minimize the impact, but “things can go wrong,” Nye said, noting that not all transformers are equipped to withstand a large solar event.
“For me, it’s like the total solar eclipse on April 8th. This really brings to our doorstep the fact that we live on a planet that orbits a star that is in a galaxy. This brings everything down to earth,” Dr. Hakeem Oluseyi, an astrophysicist, told CNN.
“If you ask me, I would say a total solar eclipse is clearly number one. But next to a bright comet, auroras are incredible to see. And if you’re near the far north or south, we can’t just get the colors of the sky, but the actual billowing curtains of cloud cover. This is amazing. So the fact that this will extend to more people around the world is really cool.”
Nye added, “Let’s celebrate this.”
This story has been updated with additional information.
CNN’s Ashley Strickland and Chris Lau contributed to this report.
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