Solar Storm Winding Down

Jason Arnold braved the cold to snap this gorgeous picture
above a sleepy Alaska town on March 9th.

The latest solar storm has been in the news lately, and even though space weather is not my expertise, I thought I'd talk about it. When this storm peaked, charged particles from the Sun knocked down radio signals, re-routed polar jet flights and created brilliant displays of Aurora Borealis like this seen in Alaska on March 8/9th.

It is pretty interesting what effects solar flares can have on the Earth's outer atmosphere and  magnetic fields. With this latest storm, all the talk about radio blackouts, power grids failing, and gps systems going bazerk was blown out of proportion. But it can and does happen with strong solar storms. Check out this K-Index which is a monitor of the solar activity levels and geo-magnetic disruption. Notice when (K) values were higher, Aurora were very visible. Areas as far south as La Crosse, WI could see the Northern Lights.

Northern Lights. Photo Courtesy Jason Arnold.

I'll link the K-Index in my favorites on the right along with this Northern Lights Forecast Model . We can use these to see if the Northern Lights will get close to Iowa sometime soon. The latest outlook suggests that a moderate to strong geomagnetic storm is possible late tonight (10th) and early on the (11th) so it might be possible to see the Aurora in the lower 48 from Michigan to Wisconsin, Minnesota and even northern Iowa.

The chances of seeing the Aurora in central Iowa are less than 5% but at least there's a chance.