More Severe Solar Storm Impact

OMAHA (DTN) -- The Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) gave an update Nov. 12 at 3:45 CST that again issued a very rare G4 severe geomagnetic storm watch. This encourages people to look again to the skies after sunset for another possible amazing display of the aurora (northern lights) in parts of Canada and the United States, but also for farmers to double check their GPS systems on their machinery.

Several coronal mass ejections (CME) of solar material and strong magnetic fields that took place Nov. 9-10. On the morning of Nov. 11, there was a X5.1 solar flare (an eruption of energy) that is rarely of this magnitude, but not necessarily unusual, stated SWPC. The solar flare increases the chance for "an elevated geomagnetic response," noted the National Weather Service. "This is highly dependent upon the orientation of the embedded magnetic field, potential exists for Extreme Storm levels."

NWS added in its Nov. 12 afternoon update, "Detrimental impacts to some of our critical infrastructure technology are possible, but mitigation is possible. The general public should visit our webpage to keep properly informed. The aurora may become visible over much of the northern half of the country, but maybe as far south as Alabama to northern California."

In its latest watch Wednesday afternoon, SWPC said the area of impact is expected primarily poleward of 55 degrees latitude. "Power grid fluctuations can occur. High-latitude power systems may experience voltage alarms. Satellite orientation irregularities may occur; increased drag on low Earth-orbit satellites is possible. HF (high frequency) radio propagation can fade at higher latitudes." Some of the watches today noted that the intermittent satellite navigation (GPS) problems could mean loss-of-lock and increased range error may occur.

Space.com reported this week's solar flare was the strongest flare of 2025, and "most intense since October 2024." The site added that yesterday, "The blast triggered strong (R3-level) radio blackouts across Africa and Europe, disrupting high-frequency radio communications on the sunlit side of Earth."

Meanwhile, in Canada and the U.S., people from various parts of the countries and many from farms and ranches posted on social media their incredible images of aurora of different colors, especially bright red; some people noted this was the first time they ever saw northern lights and some people noted they got to finally cross something off their "bucket list" in life.

The geomagnetic storm watch is for G4 (Severe)for tonight and early Nov. 13, then G1 for the following day, and none (below G1) for Nov. 15. (On the G-scale, G1 is a minor storm, G5 most extreme.)

People can see the latest information, forecasts, and updates at spaceweather.gov and https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/….

MAY 2024 STORM AFFECTED SEEDING

Farmers may recall on May 10, 2024, that while they were planting, they were affected by a powerful geomagnetic storm that affected Canada and the U.S.

The Kansas State University Research and Extension News Service said in a later press release about that event that it caused "mass global navigation satellite system outages ... leading to an assumed $565 million in losses for Midwestern crop producers," the K-State release reported, adding that there could still be geomagnetic disturbances for the solar cycle in fall 2025 and even spring 2026.

CAUSES OF SOLAR STORMS

The sun is the main source of space weather. Radio emissions, the coronal mass ejections (CMEs), and solar flares are some of the causes of 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 2019. The peak should occur in summer 2025, although some experts are now speculating this solar maximum could last into next year.

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

IMPACT ON GPS, WHAT FARMERS CAN DO

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

Like a thunderstorm, farmers can only manage their systems through GPS-battering geomagnetic storms. Newer positioning systems that lock onto multiple satellite constellations are little to not affected by solar storms.

With older navigation systems, farmers may bring a stop to fieldwork and wait for the storm to pass, often in hours. Or farmers can grab the steering wheel and just plow through, accepting crooked rows of fieldwork with data collection inaccuracies that follow.

But without GPS, the as-planted data (as-sprayed, as-fertilized, as-harvested) 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 you 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. Similar to commercial security system that records everything and then deletes it after a certain time 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/warnings at the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center. Go to https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/… or just to 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 elevated space weather, and local hardware issues have been ruled out, report outage to the Navigation Center through the on-line reporting: https://www.navcen.uscg.gov/….

For the complete K-State Research and Extension release featuring Griffin go to: https://ksre-learn.com/…

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

Follow her on social platform X @elaineshein

Progressive Farmer Senior Editor Dan Miller also contributed to this story with archived coverage.

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