Next wave of charged solar particles expected to arrive Sunday, according to NOAA

By Bert Etling, Ashland.news

It’s coming back. Another wave of charged solar material will sweep into the Earth’s atmosphere, sparking a secondary aurora borealis peak Sunday, May 12, the Space Weather Prediction Center, part of the National Weather Service, announced Saturday.

“Geomagnetic storming of varying intensity will continue overnight,” the notice, issued at 5:30 p.m. Saturday. “By early Sunday and into Sunday night, the next major Coronal Mass Ejections … will begin to slam into the Earth’s magnetic field and reach the outer atmosphere.”

The initial wave swept over the Earth late Friday and into Saturday morning, causing auroras over large portions of the U.S., including Southern Oregon, where layers of pale red and green hues, striated with apparent pillars of more intense color, painted the sky from the horizon up into the night sky overnight.

Friday’s event rated 5 on the 5-point geomatic story scale, according to SpaceWeather.com. While it agrees with National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which includes the National Weather Service and Space Weather Prediction Center, that there will be “a return to extreme (G5) storming,” SpaceWeather.com says the second peak is more likely to arrive Monday, May 13.

Email Ashland.news Executive Editor Bert Etling at [email protected] or call or text him at 541-631-1313.

To see a chart created by the Canadian Space Agency showing which colors associated with which elements at which altitude, click here.