CLOSE The bad news: A solar flare could mean disturbances in satellites and radio transmissions. The good news: A flare could also mean an expansion of the aurora borealis! Host Carly Mallenbaum talks about the impact of the strong solar storm. (USA TODAY, USA NOW) 
 
 A false-color image of the sun shows the solar flare erupting in the center of the sun on Wednesday. (Photo: Solar Dynamics Observatory) 
 
 A "strong" solar flare that launched off the sun Wednesday afternoon could cause some fluctuations in Earth's power grid and slight disturbances in satellites and radio transmissions on Friday and Saturday. 
 
 Major disruptions are not expected, even though the flare was classified as an "X-class" flare, which is at the high end of the solar flare scale. Wednesday's flare followed a weaker flare late Monday. 
 
 "We expect geomagnetic storm levels in the G2 (moderate) and G3 (strong) range," said Bill Murtagh, space weather forecaster for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. 
 
 "G2-G3 geomagnetic storms can cause some problems for the (power) grid but are typically very manageable," Murtagh said in an e-mail Thursday morning. "We may also see some anomalies with satellites so satellite operators around the world have been notified. And problems with the accuracy of GPS have been observed with this level of storming." 
 
 Forecasters with NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colo., said the flare "caused impacts to high-frequency radio communications on Earth" Wednesday afternoon. 
 
 Intense flares such as the one that erupted Wednesday are often associated with coronal mass ejections, or "CME"s. A coronal mass ejection contains billions of tons of energetic hydrogen and helium ions as well as magnetic fields ejected from the sun's surface. 
 
 Though this CME will hit the Earth, this CME isn't big enough or impressive enough to cause a more disruptive geomagnetic storm. But "any additional eruptions in the next few days will likely produce more disturbances in our geomagnetic field," Murtagh added. 
 
 It was "fairly rare" for the two CMEs (Monday evening and midday Wednesday) to come so close in succession, said Thomas Berger, the director of the Space Weather Prediction Center 
 
 SPACE CENTRAL 
 
 At the Space Weather Prediction Center in Colorado, phones ring constantly, as scientists consult with their colleagues around the world, and with their Defense Department counterparts in Nebraska, who monitor the effects on spy satellites and other classified equipment. 
 
 Screens display images of the sun in a variety of formats, from the familiar orange-yellow we're used to seeing to otherwise invisible radiation steaming toward us. The Earth's magnetic field protects us from the worst of the impacts, but the particles also affect the field, and thus our electronics. 
 
 Forecaster Chris Smith takes a call from a Civil Air Patrol group in the Midwest wondering whether the flare will affect their planned weather balloon launch. 
 
 "You'll still be within the protection of the Earth's atmosphere, so you should be OK," Smith advises. "But if you can hold off a day, that's not a bad idea." 
 
 Depending on how strongly it hits the earth, the flare's impacts could interfere with some radio signals and slightly alter GPS readings. "Folks driving down the road wouldn't notice much difference," said Murtagh. 
 
 NIGHT LIGHTS 
 
 One nice side effect of the solar storm is an expansion of the photogenic aurora borealis, or Northern Lights, across Canada and the northern U.S. 
 
 People in northern New England, the far northern Plains, and the Pacific Northwest should have the best views of the aurora. The best views should be Friday night, but some auroras could be visible Thursday night. 
 
 YOUR TAKE: Share your aurora photos 
 
 The Northern Lights appear when atoms in the Earth's high-altitude atmosphere collide with energetic charged particles from the sun. They usually appear as shimmering green waves of light in the nighttime sky in polar latitudes. Much more rarely, they can be red and even blue. 
 
 Contributing: Trevor Hughes, Elizabeth Weise; and Associated Press 
 
 Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1rX5vjJ ||||| WASHINGTON (AP) — A strong solar flare is blasting its way to Earth, but the worst of its power looks like it will barely skim above the planet and not cause many problems. 
 
 It has been several years since Earth has had a solar storm of this size coming from sunspots smack in the middle of the sun, said Tom Berger, director of the Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado. The flare on the sun barely hits the "extreme" on forecasters' scale, but with its worst effects missing Earth it is only looking "potentially strong" at most when it arrives at Earth as a solar storm, he said. 
 
 New calculations from satellite data show that the worst of the energetic particles streaming from the sun likely will go north or above Earth this time, Berger said late Wednesday. 
 
 So while the power grid may see fluctuations because the storm will cause changes in Earth's magnetic field, it won't knock power systems off line, Berger said. It may cause slight disturbances in satellites and radio transmissions but nothing major. 
 
 "We're not scared of this one," Berger said. 
 
 The storm is moving medium fast, about 2.5 million miles per hour, meaning the soonest it could arrive is early Friday. But it could be later, Berger said. 
 
 Solar storms occur often, especially during peaks in the solar cycle, and don't directly harm people. 
 
 "There's been a giant magnetic explosion on the sun," Berger said. "Because it's pointed right at us, we'll at least catch some of the cloud" of highly energized and magnetized plasma that can disrupt Earth's magnetic sphere, which sometimes leads to temporary power grid problems. 
 
 On the plus side, sun flares expand the colorful northern lights so people farther south can see them. But don't expect them too far south, Berger said. 
 
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 Online: 
 
 Space Weather Prediction Center: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/index.html 
 
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 Seth Borenstein can be followed on Twitter at http://twitter.com/borenbears ||||| NASA released a video on Thursday of what they called "a significant solar flare," released from the sun on Wednesday afternoon. The sun released a more minor flare from the same spot the day before. (NASA) 
 
 A strong geomagnetic storm is on its way to Earth this week after two solar flares erupted from a sunspot region pointed almost directly at Earth. The second of the two was a low-end X-class flare — the most intense type of flare on the classification scale. 
 
 After Tuesday’s minor solar fare from sunspot region AR 2158, the same location emitted an X1.6-class flare on Wednesday, prompting the NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center to up their forecasts for the geomagnetic storm expected to arrive here on Earth on Friday. A G2 geomagnetic storm watch is in effect for Friday, and a more intense, G3 storm watch is in effect for Saturday, due to the combined effects of the two coronal mass ejections (CMEs). 
 
 An intense, X-class solar flare occurred on Wednesday afternoon, originating from Active Region 2158. This is the second solar flare in two days from AR2158, and the associated magnetic cloud could provide an intense aurora shows on Thursday and Friday. (NASA) 
 
 Geomagnetic storms of this magnitude are not uncommon, but the current solar cycle, in which we are near the maximum, has been relatively quiet. Tom Berger, director of the Space Weather Prediction Center, estimates that a G3-level storm occurs about once a month in the more active, 11-year solar cycles. 
 
 However, space weather forecasters were intrigued by the location of these solar flares. “What’s unusual about this event is that the sunspot group producing the flares is right in the middle of the sun,” Berger says. “This is the first time in a while that we’ve had an active sunspot group pointed almost directly at Earth produce two successive major events.” 
 
 While the active region is close to the center of the sun, it’s off by just enough that Earth isn’t going to experience the full force of these ejections. Instead, they are expected to brush mostly to the north, or above, Earth, meaning we will endure only a portion of the solar blast. 
 
 Related: Are we ready for the potentially disastrous impacts of space weather? 
 
 Animation of the expanding magnetic cloud from the X1.6-class solar flare on Wednesday afternoon. (NASA, Solar and Heliospheric Observatory/spaceweather.com) 
 
 Impacts from the geomagnetic storms are expected to begin on Thursday night as the first wave of CME arrives. While high frequency radio transmissions in aircraft will likely be impacted, scientists do not expect any other major infrastructure effects, like power grid perturbations or satellite anomalies. 
 
 Of course, there will be an enhanced aurora in the northern states, “Montana, Wyoming, and of course the far northeast states like Vermont and New Hampshire. It could be seen as far south as New York,” says Berger. The aurora activity will begin on Thursday night, and will last into Friday night, as well. 
 
 While the SWPC is expecting strong storming at the most, Berger says they could be surprised. “This is an inexact field. Scientists are still very active in trying to understand the physics of these things.”
– If by chance your GPS is acting a little weird tomorrow or Saturday, this might be why: A relatively big solar storm is coming our way, reports USA Today. Scientists say no major disruptions in the power grid are expected, but satellite operators are on alert. The sun unleashed a solar flare yesterday that registers on the "extreme" end of the forecasting scale, though the worst of it was expected to miss Earth, reports AP. Yesterday's flare followed a weaker one the day before. The result will be a geomagnetic storm classified as G2 tomorrow, followed by a more intense G3 storm on Saturday, reports the Washington Post. "G2-G3 geomagnetic storms can cause some problems for the (power) grid but are typically very manageable," says a forecaster for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "We may also see some anomalies with satellites," he adds, "and problems with the accuracy of GPS have been observed with this level of storming." A better side effect: Residents in northern states should be treated to pretty skies at night. (A massive solar flare in 2012 might have zapped us back to the Stone Age had it come a little closer to Earth.)