Northern lights could be visible across much of the United States due to solar storm

A severe solar storm is expected to intensify the northern lights on Friday, with forecasts indicating that aurora could be seen as far south in the United States as Alabama.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center said Thursday that a series of solar flares and solar flares could trigger severe geomagnetic storms and “spectacular aurora displays” on Earth from Friday evening until ‘at week-end.

This is the first severe geomagnetic storm watch issued by the agency since 2005.

“We have a rare event on our hands,” said Shawn Dahl, services coordinator at the Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado. “We’re a little worried. We haven’t seen this in a long time.”

Since strong geomagnetic storms have the power to disrupt communications and power grids on Earth, as well as satellites in space, Dahl said satellite and network operators have been informed to prepare.

He said forecasters predict the storm could arrive as soon as Friday around 8 p.m. ET.

“We’re less sure of the timing of these events, because we’re talking about something that’s 93 million miles away,” Dahl said, referring to the distance between the sun and Earth.

A NASA spacecraft orbiting about 1 million miles from Earth, called the Advanced Composition Explorer, will help forecasters measure the solar wind and more precisely understand the timing and potential effects.

The northern lights, or aurora borealis, come from charged particles emitted by the sun during solar storms. The colorful displays are created when clouds of these energetic particles collide with Earth’s magnetic field and interact with atoms and molecules in the planet’s upper atmosphere.

The Northern Lights typically light up the night sky at high latitudes, but during periods of intense solar activity they can be spotted farther south than usual.