Northern Lights to be visible in US and Europe today after huge ‘cannibal’ solar storm erupts from the Sun

Auroras could be triggered by ‘cannibal’ ejection from the Sun

Windmills turn in a field near London, Ontario as the Northern lights or aurora borealis illuminate the night sky during a geomagnetic storm on May 10, 2024 (AFP via Getty Images)

The northern lights could be visible in the US and Europe after a huge solar storm erupted from the Sun.

Strong solar activity has led the US Space Weather Prediction Center to release a storm warning because of increased activity on the Sun.

Solar activity has increased and there are a host of complex sunspots on the surface that could lead to geomagnetic storms down on Earth, officials said.

The “geomagnetic storm watch” begins on Tuesday, 30 July and runs until 1 August. Those could bring what experts call “G3” conditions, which in turn can lead to auroras visible at relatively low altitudes in the US and Europe.

G3 is classified as a “strong” geomagnetic storm, and is the third of a possible five. It can have effects on radio systems and satellites, though is not strong enough to have an impact on the power grid, for instance.

The UK’s Met Office also sent an alert for a geomagnetic storm watch from Tuesday evening into Wednesday evening. It said that auroras could increase over the next three nights, and that they could be visible in Scotland, but noted that its confidence was low.

The Met Office also warned that the relatively lack of dark hours at the moment – because of the long days of summer – could get in the way of actually catching any aurora sightings.

The auroras are caused by two M-class flares that threw coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, out of the Sun and towards the Earth. The first two of those ejections appeared to have joined up into what experts call a “Cannibal CME”.

Two or more CMEs are then on their way behind that cannibal ejection, according to Spaceweather.com. They are flying into the void created by the original cannibal one – and the lack of interplanetary material that would normally slow them down will help intensify any existing geomagnetic storm.