The solar storm that hit Earth Thursday had a weaker geomagnetic impact than originally feared, and communications systems didn?t experience any serious problems. NBC?s Tom Costello reports.
>>> at this time last night we were being told by the nation's weather experts at noaa to expect a "severe geomagnetic storm " because of a major flare, a ball of plasma and energy, that had exploded from the surface of the sun on tuesday night. the dire predictions of what it would do to our planet didn't quite come true today. but the headline here may be we're in for more of these storms. tom costello has been watching all of it for us today in where wash.
>> reporter: hi, brian. good evening. scientists say the planet may have lucked out. they were expecting a category 3 storm. they got a category 1 storm and a minor one at that. and while it hit at about 6:00 a.m . eastern time , because of the earth's spin we seem to have dodged the worst of it. so far we've had no reports of serious problems with radio communications , satellite or gps connectivity or power grids . they've all apparently stayed online. but all of those systems can be vulnerable to a solar storm . what we did get is very colorful northern lights early this morning. take a look at beautiful time lapse video from michigan. that far south. showing beautiful bright-colored auroras in the night sky . astronomers do say we could be in for more solar storms in the coming months as the activity on the sun peaks sometime next year. brian?
>> let's hope those colors are the only impact. tom costello in d.c. tom, thanks. and
Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/nightly-news/46674510/
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