See photos of the rare northern lights display across the United States - The Washington Post
Democracy Dies in Darkness

Most extreme solar storm in 20 years brings beautiful northern lights

The major disturbance of Earth’s magnetosphere caused stunning aurora displays across northern Europe and very low latitudes in the U.S.

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Updated May 11, 2024 at 2:36 p.m. EDT|Published May 10, 2024 at 10:40 p.m. EDT
Purple aurora seen in central France on Friday night as a severe geomagnetic storm hit Earth. ( Gwenael Blanck/spaceweather.com)
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This is the moment aurora chasers have been waiting for.

For the first time since 2003, an extreme geomagnetic storm — the most severe of its kind — hit Earth on Friday evening. Beautiful green, purple and red dancing aurora displays, also known as the northern lights, were spotted across Europe and very low latitudes in the United States, as far south as Alabama and Florida.

If you missed Friday’s show, more geomagnetic activity is expected to continue on Saturday and Sunday. Saturday night may show weaker activity than Friday night, bringing aurora visible to the naked eye as far south as Illinois and Oregon. Aurora could be spotted farther south with a camera. Early Sunday morning, just after 4 a.m. Eastern, and Sunday evening could be more promising, with displays as far south as Friday night if forecasts hold.

“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, in central France, wrote on spaceweather.com Friday. “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!”

An aurora lit up the sky over Riex, Switzerland early on May 11, after a strong geomagnetic storm. (Video: Reuters)

NOAA scientists also warned of potential disruptions in satellite and radio communications, as well as to the electricity grid.

On Saturday morning, NOAA said in a statement that there were “reports of power grid irregularities and degradation to high-frequency communications and GPS.” Starlink, the satellite internet company, said it was “experiencing degraded service” on Saturday morning. A team is investigating the cause, but the satellites have been affected in the past by geomagnetic storms.

An extreme geomagnetic storm hit Earth on May 10 and caused the northern lights to be visible in parts of the United Kingdom. (Video: Storyful)

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, with G5 the most severe.

The agency anticipated a severe G4 storm, but the activity exceeded forecasts on Friday. Around 7 p.m. Eastern time, the storm reached the G5 level. The last time a storm of this 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 through Saturday morning, when it again hit a G5 level. NOAA calls for a strong (G3) level through Saturday, although the forecast may be updated as more solar activity arrives at Earth.

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

Residents in northern and central Mexico also flooded social media with photos of the swirling pink night sky there late Friday.

In the Southern Hemisphere, aurora were photographed in Chile, Argentina and New Zealand, 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.

The series of eruptions came from a very large and complex cluster of dark blotches on the sun, called sunspots, where the sun’s magnetic field is very strong and solar eruptions can occur. This sunspot group is about 17 times the diameter of Earth.

During Friday’s storm, the sunspot cluster continued to be active. It launched a very large and intense burst of radiation, known as a solar flare. Oftentimes, coronal mass ejections accompany solar flares and have the potential to increase geomagnetic activity on Earth.

On Saturday afternoon, NOAA wrote on X that additional coronal mass ejections are “expected to merge” and hit Earth on Sunday, bringing another round of severe to extreme geomagnetic storms. That could mean Sunday produces more unusually widespread displays of northern lights.

Frances Vinall and Jason Samenow contributed to this report.