The Canadian Space Weather Center says the storm associated with massive solar flares hit all of Canada Friday afternoon.
The U.S. National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration has released its first geomagnetic storm watch since 2005 and says the storm is a “potentially historic event.”
Kevin Aquino, a spokesperson for electricity provider BC Hydro said the company was preparing for the storm and such events could potentially cause serious damage to high-voltage transmission systems, leading to outages.
Aquino says that while these effects are not necessarily expected to occur, BC Hydro staff are monitoring any impacts.
The Canadian Space Weather Center says the storm warning will be downgraded Friday evening to a storm watch that will last until Saturday afternoon.
The center advises that major storms are associated with a very high risk of effects on geostationary satellites and potential serious disruptions to activities involving geomagnetism, including aerial surveys and directional drilling.
The storm could allow Canadians across the country to see the Northern Lights, which could even be visible as far away as California.
An unusually strong solar storm heading toward Earth could produce northern lights in the United States and disrupt communications this weekend.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has issued an advisory for a geomagnetic storm watch – the first in nearly 20 years. It starts Friday and will last all weekend.
The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said the Sun produced strong solar flares starting Wednesday, leading to five plasma explosions capable of disrupting orbiting satellites and power grids on Earth. Each flare – known as a coronal mass ejection – can contain billions of tons of solar plasma.
NOAA describes this event as unusual. The agency points out that the flares appear to be associated with a sunspot whose diameter is 16 times that of Earth. In 2003, an extreme geomagnetic storm caused power outages in Sweden and damaged power transformers in South Africa.