Source: Radio New Zealand
Light green and violet-reddish auroras glow in the night sky in the Oder-Spree district of East Brandenburg. AFP / Patrick Pleul
Transpower has issued a grid emergency notice ahead of a severe geomagnetic storm and removed some South Island electricity transmission lines from service.
The national grid operator says the move won’t affect the electricity supply to homes and businesses, but will prevent damage to critical equipment if the storm worsens.
Geomagnetic storms can send unwanted currents through electricity circuits, and have the potential to cause serious damage if they reach substations transformers or large hydroelectric dams.
The storms are caused by space weather, when the Sun ejects plasma and other matter in Earth’s direction.
Coronal mass ejections (CME) are rare, and generally aren’t noticed on earth thanks to the planet’s magnetic field shielding the planet from particles, Transpower said.
The University of Otago’s Aurora Australis Alert website rated the chances of Southern New Zealand seeing an Aurora thanks to the increased geomagnetic activity as high.
Aurora lights near Queenstown in 2024. Supplied / Emmilee Fendall Leech
If the sky was clear, the lights would be visible to the naked eye and clearly visible with a camera, it said.
However, cloudy weather is forecast for Dunedin overnight.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
