“The ongoing geomagnetic storm is likely to become more intense once more tonight,” the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said on social media.
The rapid solar flares will cause a new round of geomagnetic storms that will range from severe to extreme (G4 and G5), so the opportunity to see the northern lights continues tonight, before the activity decreases from Monday, May 13 .
Also read: US is on severe geomagnetic storm alert for the first time in two decades
If the forecast comes true, tonight the phenomena of Friday night, May 10, might occur, when levels of similar geomagnetic storms generated sightings of the northern lights even in some regions of Mexico, something that is not common in that region.
In the Mid-Atlantic, skies will be mostly clear this Sunday night into Monday, which may facilitate promising views of the aurora from West Virginia to Washington DC and South Carolina.
NOAA Sunspot Region 3664 just produced another X-class flare… pic.twitter.com/zTpa1Mig51
— NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center (@NWSSWPC) May 12, 2024
Read more: Images of the first “extreme” solar storm in 20 years
NOAA indicated that coronal mass ejections from the Sun move at a speed of 1,800 kilometers per second for “collide with the Earth’s magnetic field and reach our atmosphere“.
From the Canary Islands in Spain, off the African coast, and the megalithic monument of Stonehenge in the United Kingdom to Sonora in Mexico and Los Angeles and Chicago in the United States, numerous social media users shared images of illuminated skies on Friday night. with pinkish and greenish tones.
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According to the World Meteorological Organization, auroras consist of a luminous phenomenon in the upper layers of the atmosphere with shapes such as arcs, bands or curtains, at an altitude of between 90 and 150 kilometers, due to the interaction between the solar wind and the magnetic field of the earth.
For its part, NOAA, the US scientific agency in charge of monitoring the conditions of the atmosphere and oceans, explained that a CME ejecta is an eruption of solar material that can produce a geomagnetic storm, while a G5 alert is the maximum on a G1-G5 scale.
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