Chances are that if you didn’t see them yourself in the overnight hours this past weekend, you caught a glimpse of the Northern Lights on the social media accounts of family and friends. The night skies shimmered this past Friday and Saturday across a wide swath of the upper United States, well beyond what are considered the typical viewing zones.
The Aurora Borealis is a naturally occurring phenomenon that happens when conditions are just right between solar winds and the Earth’s magnetic field. Typically, the lights only appear occasionally locally, but this past weekend’s events were due to a strong solar storm.
Forecasters with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration use a five-level scale to measure geometric storms. This past Thursday, they warned this latest storm would like be a G4 with the potential to disrupt communications and the power grid. There were some minor complications reported with this past weekend’s events but nothing major.
The last time a G4 Storm Watch was issued was in 2005. Earth did experience another less severe but equally dramatic geometric storm back in March of this year.