‘Severe’ geomagnetic storm from solar flare could soon disrupt radio communications

Every so often something happens to make us feel really small in the grand scheme of our vast universe.

Space weather forecasters (a job that actually exists) have issued a warning that there could be significant geomagnetic storm activity throughout today, potentially causing issues for radio communications.

The real key is that a plasma burst from a solar flare might make radios less reliable, something that is relatively unlikely to impact people going about their daily lives, but could cause problems for aircraft.

NASA/SDO

In fact, the team from NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado, has said it's basically nothing to worry about for normal people, since the only radio frequencies likely to be impacted are very high, typically only really used for long-distance hailing.

Now that most planes have satellite communications, too, this shouldn't be anything that grounds flights or causes real disruption.

Best of all, there's also a significant upside to all of this - apparently, if you have clear conditions where you live, and you're in an area known for it, the aurora borealis could be really potent as a result of the storm.

These are often known as the Northern Lights, and will apparently light up the sky more brightly than usual as a result of the magnetic activity, although as always the weather will heavily influence whether you can actually see anything.

Juan Maria Coy Vergara / Getty

Jonathan Lash, a forecaster at NOAA's center, said: "For the general public, if you have clear skies at night and you are at higher latitudes, this would be a great opportunity to see the skies light up."

Sadly, that doesn't mean that aurora will be visible in random locations, so don't camp out in your garden thinking the whole world will be getting a light show.

This is a particularly bumpy phase for magnetic activity, since we're currently in what's called the solar maximum. This is a period during which the Sun's magnetic field flips - something that happens every 11 years.

So, from late 2023 and now continuing into 2024, we're in a window which has seen plenty of solar flares and magnetic storms, each carrying the potential to be a little disruptive.

While the solar maximum sees storms hit a few times each year, when it's instead the solar minimum, which is the period with the least activity, we might go a few years between storms.

So, things should calm down as time passes, and even if you're an old-school FM radio listener, you still shouldn't notice any static or disruption.