Space Weather
Division of Emergency Management
Space Weather
Space weather refers to events on the Sun and in space that can affect Earth. These events include solar flares, solar wind, and coronal mass ejections. Space weather can disrupt technology systems and, in extreme cases, pose risks to human health and safety.
NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) is the official source for space weather forecasts and warnings. The SWPC uses data from satellites and ground-based instruments to monitor the Sun and predict when solar storms will reach Earth, how long they will last, and how severe they will be.
The SWPC can provide advance warning of space weather events like solar flares and coronal mass ejections. These warnings help protect critical infrastructure like power grids and communication systems, as well as astronauts in space. However, space weather forecasting is still developing, and predictions have limitations.
Space weather events occur regularly, but their frequency and intensity vary with the Sun's activity. The Sun goes through roughly 11-year cycles, alternating between periods of high activity (solar maximum) and low activity (solar minimum). More space weather events occur during solar maximum.
Space weather events can still happen during solar minimum, though they are typically less frequent and less severe. We are currently in Solar Cycle 25, which began in December 2019 and is expected to be a relatively weak cycle with moderate solar activity.
Case Study: Various Historical Impacts
In the mid-1800's disruptions of the telegraph system by solar flares were recorded including one event on September 2, 1859 when telegraph service was disrupted for several days by a severe solar storm. When radio was invented in the early 1900's operators noticed that the sun interfered with radio transmissions.
A geomagnetic storm CME ejected from the sun on March 9, 1989 caused transformer failure and the collapse of the Hydro-Québec power network on March 13, 1989 leading to a nine hour blackout that affected over 6 million people. And in the 1960's space weather caused problems including outages and loss of data for weather satellites. The term space weather was coined to define this solar activity.
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