Solar storm not only unveiled northern lights. It caused technology issues for farmers.
The powerful solar storm that made those dazzling northern lights visible across the U.S. also reportedly caused some headaches for North America's farmers.
And it couldn't have come at a worse time.
Solar flares erupting on the sun's surface sent coronal mass ejections hurtling toward Earth on Friday, causing a geometric storm that interfered with farming equipment at the height of planting season. Tractors and other pieces of equipment relying on GPS succumbed to navigational errors when those charged particles, courtesy of the sun, interacted with Earth's magnetic field.
Such technology has become indispensable to many farmers, who have long said it serves as a tracking or guidance system to help them plant precisely and map field boundaries, according to Rural Roots Canada. Reports and warnings across the continent indicate that for many farmers, those operations came to a temporary halt during the weekend.
Here's what to know:
Northern lights:Solar storm makes auroras visible to much of US, world during solar storms
GPS outages caused by solar storm reported in U.S, Canada
For more than two weeks, Minnesota farmer Patrick O'Connor's plans to plant corn had been thwarted by rain.
O'Connor told The New York Times that he had hoped to catch up on his planting on Friday night, before a much different kind of storm once again undermined him.
Amid the geometric storm, O'Connor said he received a warning about his GPS system. But when he called a technical help line, a message informed him that an outage had occurred and nothing could be done to fix it.
"I've never dealt with anything like this," O'Connor told the Times.
In Nebraska, another farmer told 404 Media, an online technology-centric publication, that the solar storm similarly shut down all of his operations.
“All the tractors are sitting at the ends of the field right now," the farmer, Kevin Kenney, told the outlet. “No GPS."
In Canada, where communications disruptions were reportedly minimal, agricultural groups on Facebook were filled with posts about widespread GPS outages, according to Rural Roots.
The disruptions didn't come out of nowhere for farmers like Kenney and O'Connor. Farm equipment suppliers had previously warned of the storm's impending arrival and the disruptions it could cause.
On Saturday, Landmark Implement, which sells John Deere farming equipment in the Midwest, advised farmers that the storm had caused the accuracy of its systems to be “extremely compromised.”
"We are in search of tool(s) to help predict this in the future so that we can attempt to give our customers an alert that this issue may be coming," the company said in its statement. "We do believe this (is a) historic event and it isn’t something that we are going to have to continue to battle frequently."
Geometric storm was most severe since 2003
Seven coronal mass ejections from the solar flares entered Earth's outer atmosphere Friday – a day after the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued a rare storm watch for the first time in 19 years.
The charged particles, when released toward Earth, have the potential to interfere with our infrastructure, causing disruptions to the electric power grid, radio and satellite operations. Because the sun is reaching the height of its 11-year solar cycle, this solar storm was the strongest solar storm to reach Earth since October 2003.
As anticipated, sparse reports of power grid irregularities and functional decreases in high-frequency, communications and GPS systems did surface during the weekend, according to, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The powerful geometric storm also unleashed spectacular views of the northern lights.
Minor storms were reportedly still possible Tuesday, and more solar flares are possible in the near future as the sun continues to become more active at the height of its 11-year cycle.
Eric Lagatta covers breaking and trending news for USA TODAY. Reach him at [email protected]
