
Geomagnetic storm could bring New Year’s Eve aurora to northern parts of U.S.
An incoming geomagnetic storm may mean a greater chance of seeing the aurora this New Year’s Eve.
Ring in the New Year with the Northern Lights!
With solar storms causing a geomagnetic storm on Earth, the northern lights or aurora borealis could extend beyond the Arctic Circle down into the northernmost U.S. states this New Year’s Eve, according to a Dec. 31 forecast by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
The moderate-strong G2-G3 geomagnetic storm, with a Kp index of 6-7, forecasted for Dec. 31 by NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center, means the aurora could be visible in New York and Idaho, and potentially as far south as Illinois and Oregon.
The Kp-index measures geomagnetic activity in the Earth’s atmosphere. “For Kp in the range 6 to 7, the aurora will move even further from the poles and will become quite bright and active,” according to NOAA.
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A minor G1-level geomagnetic storm warning is also active from New Year’s Eve into Jan. 1. These storms typically produce auroras visible only from higher latitudes, in locations such as northern Minnesota, Michigan, and Maine.
Multiple solar flares—two X-class solar flares and 17 M-class flares—erupted on the Sun within 24 hours on Dec. 29.
Two of the M-class flares released solar storms, or streams of electrically charged particles and plasma called coronal mass ejections (CMEs), toward Earth.
This prompted the Space Weather Prediction Center to issue two geomagnetic storm warnings ahead of the CMEs’ arrival.
Traveling 93 million miles, the CMEs are expected to reach Earth early in the mornings of Dec. 31 and Jan. 1.