Why is everyone seeing the aurora borealis so often this year?
Space weather is in a hectic cycle, with strong solar winds smashing into Earth's magnetic fields
Last night, it seemed like everyone in my social media feeds was posting photos of the northern lights. CBS reported they could be seen as far south as Florida (usually with a phone camera, with the saturation turned up), which is quite unusual. Usually auroras are only visible near the earth’s north and south poles.
Wikipedia describles an aurora as, “a natural light display in Earth's sky… [caused by] solar wind from coronal holes and coronal mass ejections. These disturbances alter the trajectories of charged particles in the magnetospheric plasma.” So this is natural radio art on the largest scale.
Shawn Dahl, a forecast coordinator with the Space Weather Prediction Center, told CBS Boston that the northern lights have been so intense lately because of where the sun is in its 11-year solar cycle. Dahl said that "we are in the midst of solar maximum."
"What that means is the sun is now this twisted-up mass of strong magnetic fields, and some of these are so localized and intense they reveal themselves as these sunspot groups," Dahl said. "That's the source of a bunch of the space weather storms that we're looking for and predict."
The current solar storm has subsided, but there could be additional large solar storms as long as the solar maximum continues.
Where to find space weather reports, to keep up on when the northern lights may be visible again?
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Space Weather Prediction Center is one of the best sources for solar weather information. Their forecast for today: “A G3 (Strong) geomagnetic storm watch remains in effect for 11 Oct as CME effects continue to diminish.”
And this current solar storm — which can disrupt radio signals — also comes during the twice-a-year “solar satellite interference” week. When the sun passes directly behind the satellites that transmit cable signals twice a year, solar interferences can briefly block satellite communications and interfere with you watching “The Office” or some football game. “When the sun is aligned with a transmitting satellite, solar flares and radiation emitted by the sun disrupts the satellite’s signal and causes a brief signal outage,” one cable provider wrote, warning customers about this weekend’s probable outages
.