Northern lights set the sky aglow amid powerful geomagnetic storm

Millions of Americans were able to see the magical glow of the northern lights on Friday night when a powerful geomagnetic storm reached Earth. 

The northern lights, also known as the aurora borealis, were predicted to be visible as far south as Alabama and Northern California. People reported seeing the lights as far south as Florida and Oklahoma. 

Some areas, like New York City, were impacted by cloud cover and missed out on the spectacular show, but the phenomenon is expected to last through the weekend and possibly into next week. Experts said the aurora borealis will likely be visible in some parts of the U.S. Saturday night, with the best chance to see the northern lights between 10 p.m. Saturday and 2 a.m. Sunday.     

“The aurora is when we get energized particles that have left the sun in more quantities than usual, and they interact with Earth’s magnetic barrier,” Shawn Dahl, senior space weather forecaster for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, explained to CBS News.

The geomagnetic storm reached Earth Friday evening as an “extreme” G5, according to the NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center. Geomagnetic storms are ranked from G1 to G5.

“This one is pretty large, It think it’s pretty extreme, we got to the G5, which is the highest in terms of strength,” said Dr. Nour Rawafi, an astrophysicist with the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.

It marks the first G5 geomagnetic storm to reach Earth since October 2003. A G5 is so large it can disrupt satellites we rely on for communications and GPS. Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites were reporting “degraded service.”

Dahl explains a G5 storm can potentially disrupt the GPS we use on our phones.

“It could, because most of our phones are single-frequency GPS systems,” Dahl said.

The aurora borealis has the capacity to impact power grids and cause blackouts. In 2003, the G5 storm caused some power outages in Sweden and damaged transformers in South Africa, according to the NOAA. This year, however, utility companies took precautions.

“It seems like, this time around, certain steps were taken, and we avoided that so far,” Rawafi said.

Photos of the northern lights 

Photographers and videographers nationwide captured images that show the northern lights streaking the sky in shades of blue, green, and even purple.