![]() The CMEs can travel at speeds of over a million miles per hour, and the ejected mass of protons and electrons can cross the 93-million-mile distance from the sun to the Earth in a matter of days. These huge eruptions contain what is equivalent to the power of several nuclear bombs all exploding from the surface of the sun. These solar storms happen every 11 years as the sun completes a solar cycle in which mass amounts of radiation and plasma are emitted. This is classified as a very strong geomagnetic storm which could produce some irregularities with GPS and some problems with power grids. This CME has been given a rating of ‘G3’ from NOAA. The CME on August 18-19 will potentially blend and overspread with the magnetic energy from the previous storms. NorwayLights is a website with a northern lights forecast as well as an app with an overview of places known as main northern light cities in Norway. Several small CMEs were released on August 14 and 15. These geomagnetic storms are released along the outer surface of the sun and are called Coronal Mass Ejections or CMEs. In northern Indiana, you might be able to see them low on the horizon. If you want to view the Northern Lights, try to find a place that doesn’t have a lot of city light pollution. The Aurora this night was seen over many parts of the Northern Hemisphere north of the tropics, courtesy of an unusually large geomagnetic storm.A large geomagnetic storm from the outer bands of the sun will trigger widespread auroras (the Northern Lights) across many parts of the country over the next several days. This occurred on the night of November 5th and 6th, 2001 where amazing Aurora displays were seen as far south as Texas, Arizona and San Diego, CAĪn NWS employee formerly in Rapid City SD, took this spectacular picture of an Aurora Borealis display on November 5th, 2001. Displays this far south can occur when a large coronal mass ejection from the Sun creates a huge geomagnetic storm in the Earth's outer atmosphere. Although most common in the northern latitudes, the Aurora have been occasionally seen south of 35 degrees north latitude which encompasses the far southern United States. They also usually show a greater frequency during the winter months, where the nights are longer and the skies generally void of haze. Aurora displays usually increase during times of the solar maximum. This means in general that in these latitudes, the Aurora should occur on at least half of the nights throughout the year. In the northern hemisphere, there is a 50% or greater chance of seeing Aurora roughly between the latitudes of 55 to 80 degrees north. Although harmless to life on Earth, the Aurora can cause power disruptions in satellite communications and in radio/TV broadcasts.Īurora Displays: The northern latitudes (or southern latitudes in the southern hemisphere) see the greatest occurrence of the Aurora. The Aurora are constantly changing and moving in streams of light or curtains, because the process of how the Sun's ionized gas interacts with the Earth's magnetic field is very dynamic. As electrons pass through the neon tubing, they glow, thus producing the light in a neon sign. ![]() This is the same principal as how a neon sign lights up. Some of the ions become trapped and will consequently interact with the Earth's ionosphere (an average of 60-80 miles above the surface), causing the ions to glow. As the plasma comes in contact with the Earth's magnetic field, the ions will be agitated into moving around the Earth. ![]() What Causes the Aurora? The Sun emits electrically-charged particles called ions, which correspondingly move away from the Sun in a stream of plasma (ionized gas) known as the solar wind. If n is bigger than 2, the data is pretty accurate. To be more certain, we should also look at the n factor on the image it will tell us how much we can trust the data. The Aurora Australis is the southern hemisphere counterpart to the Aurora Borealis. The golden rule to get your Northern Lights forecast: the redder the color of the Auroral Oval, the higher the chance that an Aurora will occur. The Aurora Borealis (commonly referred to as the Northern Lights) are the result of interactions between the Sun and Earth's outer atmosphere. ![]()
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