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Solar flare caused radio blackouts in Africa and Europe

Admin

November 12, 2025
3 min read

Solar flare caused radio blackouts in Africa and Europe

The Sun has released the strongest solar flare of 2025, triggering radio blackouts in parts of Africa and Europe. The eruption occurred on 11^th November, unleashing a major X5.1-class flare, the strongest so far and the most intense since October last year.

The eruption peaked at 10 am GMT from sunspot AR4274, which has been active in recent days. The blast resulted in strong radio blackouts in both Africa and Europe and disrupted high-frequency radio communications on the sunlit side of the planet.

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The most recent solar flare is the latest in a series of powerful eruptions from the sunspot, which also produced powerful flares in the days before. These were accompanied by coronal mass ejections (CMEs) which could combine and strike the planet again. It could possibly cause a geomagnetic storm and auroras visible from many different parts of the world, according to NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Centre.

A solar flare is ranked by strength in five classes, A, B, C, M, and X. Each one is ten times more intense in terms of energy output than the previous. X-class flares are the most powerful and the number after the X is their intensity. X5.1 is at the top.

The recent eruption saw a surge of X-rays and extreme UV radiation hit the Earth, ionising the support atmosphere and causing radio blackouts across Africa and Europe.

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