US Issues ‘Severe Geomagnetic Storm Watch’ – First Warning in Almost 20 Years

The sun will be sending Earth a lot of static in the coming days, but on the plus side, the Northern Lights could be visible from Alabama.

On Thursday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued a Severe (G4) Geomagnetic Storm Watch Thursday, according to an NOAA news release.

The alert is the first issued since 2005.

The alert is triggered by solar activity in the form of solar flares and what are called coronal mass ejections. In trying to put the science in layman’s terms, spaceweather,com explains that “If geomagnetic storms were hurricanes, ‘severe’ would be category 4.”

The geomagnetic disruptions will reach Earth as early as noon Eastern Time on Friday and could continue through the weekend, means that people in California and Alabama may have a chance to see the Northern Lights.

Trending:

Must Watch: Biden Got Asked 1 Tough Question in CNN Interview and Couldn’t Handle It

The NOAA says that five solar flares and coronal mass ejections, which are “explosions of plasma and magnetic fields from the sun’s corona,” are heading toward Earth.

Geomagnetic storms, NOAA says, “can impact infrastructure in near-Earth orbit and on Earth’s surface, potentially disrupting communications, the electric power grid, navigation, radio and satellite operations”

Will the left blame this event on Climate Change?

At the root of the problem is a cluster of sunspots that is 16 times the diameter of Earth, according to the NOAA.

The NOAA said that similar sun storms that took place in 2003 were linked to power outages in Sweden and damaged power transformers in South Africa.

Although there has been no specific prediction for this geomagnetic storm, one researcher said solar activity has the potential to disrupt the internet, according to Fox Weather.

Related:

Warning Issued to Anyone Using AI ‘Death Calculator’

“The internet has come of age during a time when the sun has been relatively quiet, and now it’s entering a more active time,” Professor Peter Becker of George Mason University said.

“It’s the first time in human history that there’s been an intersection of increased solar activity with our dependence on the internet and our global economic dependence on the internet,” he said.

“There have been a lot of (solar) flares,” Becker said. “Flares are when the sun brightens, and we see the radiation, and that’s kind of the muzzle flash. And then the cannon shot is the coronal mass ejection.”

“So, we can see the flash, but then the coronal mass ejection can go off in some random direction in space, but we can tell when they’re actually going to head towards Earth. And that gives us about 18 hours of warning, maybe 24 hours of warning, before those particles actually get to Earth and start messing with Earth’s magnetic field,” he said.

Becker said one massive flare disrupted communications in 1859, although spaceweather.com says this weekend’s geomagnetic storm will not be at that level.


A Note from Our Deputy Managing Editor:

 

“We don’t even know if an election will be held in 2024.” Those 12 words have been stuck in my head since I first read them. 

 

Former Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn recently made that comment to Floyd Brown, founder of The Western Journal. 

 

And if the leftists and the elites get their way, that’s exactly what will happen — no real election, no real choice for the Electoral College, and no real say for the American people. 

 

The Western Journal is fighting to keep that from happening, but we can’t do it alone.

 

We work tirelessly to expose the lying leftist media and the corrupt America-hating elites.

 

But Big Tech’s stranglehold is now so tight that without help from you, we will not be able to continue the fight. 

 

The 2024 election is literally the most important election for every living American. We have to unite and fight for our country, otherwise we will lose it. And if we lose the America we love in 2024, we’ll lose it for good. Can we count on you to help? 

 

With you we will be able to field journalists, do more investigative work, expose more corruption, and get desperately needed truth to millions of Americans. 

 

We can do this only with your help. Please don’t wait one minute. Donate right now.

 

Thank you for reading,

Josh Manning

Deputy Managing Editor

 

P.S. Please stand with us today.



Source link