The aurora as seen from Piopio
A legion of newbie aurora watchers scanned the space weather pages this week looking for a repeat event following Saturday night’s stunning display of the aurora Australis.
At least one shock wave was still on its way, produced by an x5.8 flare, but there was no repeat of Saturday’s vermillion skies.
More experienced aurora observors are suspicious. They are expecting a number of after effects on planet earth over the next week from such a massive influx of power, which could include weather anomalies and an uptick in siesmic activity.
Solar flares produce coronal mass ejections (CMEs) which have been described as ‘the sun expelling a big chunk of ionised matter’, except it’s not matter, it’s plasma – electrically charged. Moving charged particles generate electric currents, and any movement of a charged plasma particle affects and is affected by the fields created by the other charges. A CME is like a vast wave of electricty washing against the planet’s magnetic field.
That’s what creates aurorae. Except Saturday’s CMEs had an effect out of all proportion to their size and intensity.
In the US the aurora was seen in Puerto Rico for the first time in 103 years. That was in 1921, it was the result of an x50 flare with a dst (disturbance storm time index) of -900. Last weekend’s aurora was caused by an x3 flare with a dst of -250.
The storm over the weekend was big, but not so big it should have driven the aurora to Puerto Rico – or Piopio, Te Kūiti, Tauranga – and all the other places that flooded social media this week with red sky pictures.
It used to take major x class solar flares, extreme speed plasma striking earth, and top level geomagnetic storms, yet Earth experieinced low latitude aurorae five times in 2023.
In september a solar storm that was not major, not triggered by an extreme speed shock wave or x class solar flare, caused auroral activity to be visible from Arizona in the USA, which lies roughly between 32-37 degrees latitude.
New Zealand is slightly higher in latitude starting at about 35 degrees at Awanui Northland, 40 degrees Whanganui, and 45 degrees at Oamaru.
The same thing happened in August. No x-class flares, the solar wind was moderately strong at best, and the geomagnetic storm was below kp7. But the aurora was visible in Arizona. An April 2024 storm was fairly strong but not at the top level of disruption, no mega level CME, yet the aurora was visible in Mexico and southern Texas between latitude 15 and 25 north.
The implication is uncomfortable. Its not that the sun is breaking records, it’s that earth is in trouble in a geomagnetic way. Earth’s magnetic field is weaker.
“There has never been any year where far southern aurora were seen as many times as we have just had,” Ben Davidson at the Suspicious Obserers channel said. “This is a record and the year is not over yet.
“What’s worse is the geomagnetic storms have not hit the top level of disruption and the solar activity that triggered them was moderately strong at best. The earth is becoming more and more vulnerable to solar activity.”
