Severe Solar Storm Watch Issued

OMAHA (DTN) -- The Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) has issued a severe geomagnetic storm watch on Thursday afternoon, saying the solar wind conditions have strengthened and reached G4 levels.

SWPC rates these storms arriving from the sun on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being a minor storm and 5 an extreme storm.

Geomagnetic storm watches are caused by coronal mass ejections (CME). A CME is an eruption of solar material. When they arrive at Earth, a geomagnetic storm can result.

A severe geomagnetic storm is "a major disturbance in Earth's magnetic field; often varying in intensity between lower levels and severe storm conditions over the course of the event," noted SWPC.

Besides possibly affecting satellites, GPS for farmers and communications in hurricane recovery areas, the solar storm could also mean people will see northern lights as far south as Alabama and northern California tonight.

STRONG SOLAR FLARE OBSERVED

On Oct. 8, at about 10 p.m. EDT, a strong x-class solar flare was observed, and on Oct. 9, NOAA did a storm briefing webinar saying a severe geomagnetic storm was expected Thursday morning and could perhaps last into Friday.

On Thursday, a G3 warning was issued by SWPC at 11:41 a.m. EDT. "The anticipated coronal mass ejection (CME) arrived at Earth at 11:15 a.m. EDT (Thursday) at nearly 1.5 million miles per hour," SWPC stated on its website. "The CME strength and structure are being closely scrutinized for potential geomagnetic storm intensity, but G3 levels are now expected due to the magnitude and potential of the CME, therefore G3 or greater warning has been issued. G4 (Severe) levels remain likely with the watch still in effect and even a slight chance of G5 (Extreme) levels due to initial observations of the CME strength."

At 12:57 EDT Thursday, G4 level was observed, and a G4 or greater geomagnetic storm watch was issued for Thursday and Friday, still emphasizing it could reach G5 (extreme) levels.

POWER GRID OFFICIALS CONTACTED

NOAA noted during its webinar on Oct. 9 that North America reached G5 levels in May and that the power grid officials were contacted early -- six hours before the storm arrived -- to prepare them for it.

"This time, with all the hurricane relief efforts going on and the inbound hurricane going into Florida and across the peninsula, we thought it prudent to immediately contact them now, so we did that and we've already made a call to the North American power grid for their understanding and to do any additional things they may need to do in preparation for the storm should we reach G4 and G5 levels ..." said Shawn Dahl, service coordinator for NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center.

The center noted the severe solar storm matters because there could be some effects to power grid, satellite ops, and GPS. It added there could also be HF communication degradation at higher latitudes.

As G4 status was observed, SWPC noted, "Infrastructure operators have been notified to take action to mitigate impacts." This included watching for possible increased and more frequent voltage control problems that are normally mitigable. The center added there could be increased possibility of anomalies or effects to satellite operations, and more frequent and longer periods of GPS degradation possible.

POSSIBLE IMPACT ON HURRICANE RECOVERY EFFORTS

The timing of this storm is also being closely watched because of its possible impact on recovery efforts for Hurricanes Helene and Milton. FEMA and other state agencies have been updated on this.

SWPC said this impact could be in several critical ways:

-- Communications. "Systems that depend on low-Earth-orbit satellites or high-frequency communication may experience disruptions."

-- Power grids. "The storm could put additional stress on power grids already weakened by the hurricanes."

-- GPS services. "Navigation systems, especially those relied upon in disaster relief, may be degraded."

CAUSE OF THE GEOMAGNETIC STORMS

The sun is the main source of space weather. Eruptions of plasma and magnetic field structures from sunspot regions, coronal mass ejections (CMEs), and solar flares can cause geomagnetic storms.

Storms are more common during solar maximums. The peak of sunspot activity is known as a solar maximum. The lull is known as solar minimum. Maximums and minimums occur on average in 11-year cycles. Earth is approaching the peak of the current solar maximum that began in 2020. The peak should occur in summer 2025, and this cycle is expected to last into early 2026.

Radio-frequency-disrupting flares reach Earth at the speed of light. CMEs travel more slowly, taking one to five days to reach Earth. Both can disrupt communications, the power grid, navigation, radio and satellite operations for minutes, hours or days at a time.

POSSIBLE IMPACT ON GPS AND WHAT TO DO

A complete loss of signal lock by a GPS receiver due to extreme noise from the upper atmosphere (primarily at night) can result in no location data for an interval of time. Noise introduced by the upper atmosphere could also induce errors in the calculated position.

Like during a thunderstorm, farmers can only manage through GPS-battering geomagnetic storms. If you know a storm is on the way, you can stop fieldwork and wait for the storm to pass. Or you could grab the steering wheel and just plow through, accepting crooked rows and any planting and data collection inaccuracies that follow.

But without GPS, the as-planted data (as-sprayed, as-fertilized) cannot be logged onto a map or georeferenced. This isn't just a negative result for farm operators -- seed suppliers and local agronomists rely upon these data for upstream use.

Here are specific actions farmers can take:

-- Understand what part of any equipment or data system relies on GPS or radio frequencies (RF) and how resilient that equipment is to RF/GPS noise. Are your GPS receivers single- or dual-frequency receivers? Single-frequency receivers are more susceptible to space weather.

-- Have a short-term local data backup system. Like a commercial security system that records everything and then deletes it after a certain period, data would go to both the cloud and a short-term, local backup system that could be recovered if the connection to the cloud is compromised.

-- Sign up for space weather alerts, watches and warnings at the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center. (https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/…)

-- If an issue is noticed with the GPS systems, look at the NOAA alerts or the Navigation Centers civilian GPS outage reports (https://www.navcen.uscg.gov/…) to determine whether the source is environmental or a hardware problem.

-- If there is an elevated level of space weather and local hardware issues have been ruled out, report an outage to the Navigation Center through the online reporting: https://www.navcen.uscg.gov/…. It is important that the nation has a good understanding of how space weather affects users.

NORTHERN LIGHTS POSSIBLE FARTHER SOUTH

For those in Canada and the United States who want to see northern lights, or aurora borealis, as they move farther south toward the equator, this latest solar storm offers a better opportunity.

During Wednesday's webinar, Dahl said that with a G4, the aurora would be anticipated to be farther south than the Northern Tier states.

He noted that digital imagery technology is allowing people to see the red aurora higher in the atmosphere. "People are seeing and photographing the red aurora high up in the atmosphere from distances much further southward than we would normally think the aurora could be visible, so we get to that level -- this could easily be seen down through the central-eastern states into the lower Midwest and into even perhaps northern California," he said. If it goes to G5 level, it could be even farther south, such as the May storm reached.

Dahl added that even cellphone sensors these days have a chance to pick up the aurora when the naked eye isn't seeing it.

Progressive Farmer Senior Editor Dan Miller contributed to this story.

-- To see the Oct. 9 NOAA webinar about the current solar storm, see https://www.youtube.com/….

Elaine Shein can be reached at elaine.shein@dtn.com

Follow her on social platform X @elaineshein

Dan Miller can be reached at dan.miller@dtn.com

Follow him on social platform X @DMillerPF

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