For those who will be able to see the auroras, this will be cool. But not sure if anyone is following this and may know whether and to what extent we might actually experience power and communications issues? Also wonder if this might be a time for an opportunistic attack on our grids? MEDIA ADVISORY: NOAA Forecasts Severe Solar Storm; Media Availability Scheduled for Friday, May 10 | NOAA / NWS Space Weather Prediction Center NOAA forecasts severe solar storm; media availability scheduled for May 10 NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) — a division of the National Weather Service — is monitoring the sun following a series of solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) that began on May 8. Space weather forecasters have issued a Severe (G4) Geomagnetic Storm Watch for the evening of Friday, May 10. Additional solar eruptions could cause geomagnetic storm conditions to persist through the weekend. A large sunspot cluster has produced several moderate to strong solar flares since Wednesday at 5:00 am ET. At least five flares were associated with CMEs that appear to be Earth-directed. SWPC forecasters will monitor NOAA and NASA’s space assets for the onset of a geomagnetic storm. CMEs are explosions of plasma and magnetic fields from the sun’s corona. They cause geomagnetic storms when they are directed at Earth. Geomagnetic storms can impact infrastructure in near-Earth orbit and on Earth’s surface, potentially disrupting communications, the electric power grid, navigation, radio and satellite operations. SWPC has notified the operators of these systems so they can take protective action. Geomagnetic storms can also trigger spectacular displays of aurora on Earth. A severe geomagnetic storm includes the potential for aurora to be seen as far south as Alabama and Northern California. World told to brace for 'severe geomagnetic storm' today - the first in nearly 20 years - which could bring chaos to mobile phone networks, GPS satellites and power grids | Daily Mail Online World told to brace for 'severe geomagnetic storm' today - the first in nearly 20 years - which could bring chaos to mobile phone networks, GPS satellites and power grids
Alerts, Watches and Warnings | NOAA / NWS Space Weather Prediction Center Active Warning: Yes NOAA Scale: G4 - Severe *** Potential Impacts: Area of impact primarily poleward of 45 degrees Geomagnetic Latitude. Induced Currents - Possible widespread voltage control problems and some protective systems may mistakenly trip out key assets from the power grid. Induced pipeline currents intensify.
“Chaos” is a little strong. Remember last month when AT&T went down for half a day? It won’t be even that.
1921 storm had lights as far south as Havana. Estimated that storm would put 1.5B people out of power with outages lasting months due to number of transformers blown
