According to Geosphere Austria, the strongest geomagnetic storm since June 2015 occurred on Friday night. Intense Northern Lights have been observed in northern Europe, the UK, Canada and the US, in the US as far south as Arizona. In Austria, “a faint glow could be seen on several webcams shortly after midnight on March 24.”

The solar storm responsible for this was ejected from the sun on March 20 in a relatively unspectacular flare and also traveled to Earth at a comparatively slow speed, which the storm reached at noon on March 23, Geosphere (formerly ZAMG) reported. Whether solar storms cause a so-called geomagnetic storm when they hit the Earth’s magnetic field depends mainly on the structure of the internal magnetic field.

The magnetic field of this solar storm was quite weak, according to the experts, “but it had exactly the right orientation to transfer a lot of energy to the Earth’s magnetic field and thus cause the aurora borealis.” The magnetic variations were measured at Geosphere Austria’s Conrad Observatory and reached a high level of activity typical of a solar storm over a period of more than 15 hours. A slight increase in direct currents could also be observed in the Austrian power grid.

The storm was then Friday at noon “almost completely past land.” However, a second solar storm is expected, which could cause more geomagnetic activity in the coming days. The Northern Lights in Austria are quite unlikely.

Shortly before the arrival of the solar storm, Emma Davies and Christian Möstl from the Austrian Office for Space Weather at Geosphere Austria were able to show that the storm’s magnetic field had the right configuration for a strong geomagnetic storm. These rare tests are important for understanding how space weather can be predicted much more accurately with space probes that could possibly be built in the next ten to 20 years.

From: apa