Solar Storm Not as Strong as Feared
A solar storm struck Earth’s magnetic field early Thursday morning, delivering “a pretty good shock” but not causing any of the geomagnetic disruptions that scientists feared.
“All told, it’s not a terribly strong event,” said physicist Joe Kunches of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) at a news conference Thursday.
The solar outburst struck Earth’s magnetic field around 6:05 a.m ET, Kunches said, cutting some radio communications at the poles, but it didn’t upset electronics and communications elsewhere.
NOAA rated the resultant solar storm at a G1 level, a minor storm, largely because the outburst’s magnetic field aligned with Earth’s in a way that minimized damage. On the G1 to G5 scale of geomagnetic storm intensity, with G5 being the worst, Kunches had predicted earlier the storm would be a G3, considered to be a “strong” one.
“We’re like a baseball hitter trying to see a curveball coming,” Kunches said.
Astronomers could tell the solar eruption Tuesday was coming in fast and pointed at Earth but they couldn’t predict the magnetic impact — crucial information that could reveal whether the storm’s effects would be more severe.
As it was, the storm only diverted airplane flights over the North and South poles, typically 15-minute delays to long trips, and disrupted radio communications at both poles.