At Providence, solar aurora may be visible overnight Tue into Wed and, to a lesser extent, Wed into Thu. Aurora is unusual at latitudes this far south, but it typically happens a few times every year.
Weather at Providence during the potential aurora will be partly cloudy increasing from 40% cloud cover Tue sunset to 90% overcast Wed sunrise, temperature about 35°F and near-zero chance of rain; then partly cloudy from 45% cloud cover Wed sunset to 70% overcast Thu early morning, temperature about 40°F and near-zero chance of rain.
This aurora is caused by a series of solar flares on Nov 11, an unusually strong X5.1 flare at 1004UTC (0504EST) followed by fairly strong X1.7 and X1.2 flares. This X5.1 event is among the strongest likely to be observed during the current 11-year solar cycle.
These coronal mass ejections (CMEs) were blasted from the sun toward earth, and may produce a G4 (severe) storm in the earth’s geomagnetic field. Such storms are usually imperceptible to humans, but, in addition to visible aurora, they may cause disruptions of radio communications and systems that rely on orbiting satellites, such as Global Positioning System (GPS), and in rare cases can affect the electrical power grid.
The atmosphere usually shields earth from harmful biological effects, but this event may be sufficiently severe that it can be detected all the way through the atmosphere to the ground, known as a Ground Level Event (GLE), which happens about once every 20 years. Travelers in high-altitude aircraft may be exposed to slightly higher than normal radiation.
