A severe solar storm slammed Earth on Monday afternoon and pushed shimmering polar auroras. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said a potent blast of magnetic plasma shot out of the sun, travelling faster than usual.

The giant sunspot group named AR2371 erupted with massive flares. It triggered several particle ejections from the solar corona.

The storm racing through Earth’s ionosphere was so severe that it reached G4 class. It has the potential to cause problems for power systems and spacecraft operations.

However, NOAA space weather physicist Doug Biesecker said there are no reports of damage. However, electrical grid and GPS probably had some trouble in functioning, but control was soon gained over the problem.

Chris Cook, a photographer based in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, captured the show over the Atlantic Ocean, far from city lights. He said, “I setup at Breakwater Beach overlooking Cape Cod Bay. This offered me a dark unobstructed horizon to the north. The aurora became visible even in deep twilight”.

Photographer Ashley Williams in north in Michigan also noticed strange green floating high in the sky from her house window.

At northern latitudes, the aurora appeared higher in the sky and in all sorts of colors and forms while further south, only the top edge of aurora appeared as a red glow toward the northern horizon.