VANCOUVER — B.C. Hydro says crews are getting ready for some stormy space weather Thursday.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the U.S. is predicting a G3 or strong category geomagnetic storm on Thursday, and a G2 or moderate storm on Friday, according to a posted alert.
A geomagnetic storm is a major disturbance of the Earth’s magnetosphere that occurs when there is a very efficient exchange of energy from the solar wind into the space environment surrounding Earth, according to the NOAA.
The agency says when the charged particles hit the Earth, they could cause aurora borealis, or northern lights, as far south as Iowa, Pennsylvania and Oregon.
B.C. Hydro said Wednesday that it’s preparing for a strong solar magnetic storm, which could lead to power cuts. Solar magnetic storms are gusts of charged particles that come from the sun, and can potentially cause serious damage to high-voltage transmission systems, leading to outages, says Brett Hallborg, senior system control manager with B.C. Hydro.
“What it does is it causes our power equipment to malfunction. It could lead to a widespread power failure, which is what happened in Quebec in the 1980s.”
The March 1989 geomagnetic storm caused a nine-hour outage of Hydro-Québec’s electricity transmission system.
However, Hallborg says that’s a worst-case scenario and it’s unlikely that customers will notice anything. He says they have never had a problem with geomagnetic storms in the 30 years he has been with B.C. Hydro.
“Our plan is to try and make the power systems as robust as we can,” he says, which includes restoring equipment and increasing monitoring.
The electromagnetic storm has been ramping up over three days from G1, which is minor, to G2 and then to G3 on Thursday, which is strong, he says.
“The currents that could be induced in the Earth’s surface are what we are nervous about,” he says.
