SA space agency warns geomagnetic storms to impact Earth over weekend, expect disruptions

The South African National Space Agency (Sansa) has warned that a strong geomagnetic storm is expected to hit the country over the weekend.

Sansa said the geomagnetic storm can disrupt communications and navigation systems and might cause the re-appearance of the Southern Lights over South African skies.

Strong solar flare

It said the origin of this storm was a solar flare that erupted from sunspot 3842 on Thursday, 3 October at 14h18.

“This is the strongest Earth-facing solar flare recorded by Sansa in the past seven years and measured X9.05. Solar flares are measured in five categories, A, B, C, M and X with X being the strongest.

“Thursday’s X9 flare impacted high-frequency radio communications resulting in a total radio blackout over the African region which lasted for up to 20 minutes,” Sansa said.

Sansa added that it has been monitoring sunspot region 3842 since last month when it appeared on the Sun’s visible disk and is about 1,5 times larger than the Earth’s surface area. 

“The Sunspot produced several significant solar flares and associated coronal mass ejections (CMEs), which are waves of charged energetic particles. These waves of energetic particles will impact Earth over the weekend, causing geomagnetic storms.”

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Impact times

Sansa said the impact of the CME recorded on 1 October, is expected later today (Friday, 4 October 2024) and a minor (G1) storm has been forecast.

“The CME recorded on 3 October (associated with the major X9 flare) is expected to impact the Earth tomorrow (Saturday, 5 October 2024) and geomagnetic conditions are expected to range from G1/Minor storm to G3/strong with storm levels possibly reaching G4/Severe storm throughout the day.”

South Africans had a rare glimpse of the Aurora Australis or Southern Lights on 10 May this year during the “Mother’s Day Storm” and many photos of red aurora were captured during the G5/Extreme storm.

Aurora Australis

Dr Mpho Tshisaphungo, Sansa head of Space Weather believes that if this CME reaches Earth later on Friday night into the early morning hours of Saturday, there might be a small chance of spotting the Southern Lights.

“However, confidence is low as this is dependent on the strength of the geomagnetic storm,” explaining that aurora is only visible during the night and with no cloud cover.

Sansa said geomagnetic storms can have a severe impact on communication and navigation systems as well as the power grid and urged industries using these systems should take note of possible disruptions over the weekend.

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