As an amateur radio nut I like to follow sunspot cycles as it effects propagation (a.k.a Skip) . I follow a couple of good YT channels, one of which gives daily solar reports. Since yesterday we've had five solar flares, four of which are strong "X Class". They erupted facing earth. These flares created large Corona Mass Ejections - large plumes of plasma. One X class flare can cause power grid disruptions, cell phone issues etc and bright northern lights. Four strong ones could potentially do a lot of damage. While we hope this event is a nothing burger, you may want to be prepared for power disruptions, ATM's going down, cell phones not working etc this weekend. The first CME will hit later tomorrow afternoon with the others following Saturday. The earths magnetic field is quite weak as we are undergoing a pole shift. This is concerning as we are seeing small flares causing larger issues.
Just wait until we are completely electrified, then a Carrington Event happens. It already happened in the 1800s. Telegraph lines disconnected from the battery source were still fully charged and operational.
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67 Chevelle Malibu Sport Coupe, Oshawa-built 250 PG never disturbed.
In garage, 296 cid inline six & TH350...
Cam, Toronto.
I don't judge a man by how far he's fallen, but by how far back he bounces - Patton
Some are calling this event Carrington Event 2.0. The sunspots creating these flares is almost identicle to the same one that created the Carrington event. In fact if you still have your Eclipse glasses you can see the sunspot. It's that big. If anything we'll surely see an uptick in severe weather and earthquakes in the days following these impacts.
On the plus side, any chance we will see northern lights in the Maritimes, Todd? I mean, I don't doubt that we are already susceptible to huge problems due to the hold that electronics have on our life, soon to turn into a 1980s dystopian sci-fi movie coming to real life with the onslaught of AI...
So if we suffer the pains of being cut off from our electronics destiny (with all the real pain associated), I at least want to see some nice northern lights... ;)
We had a 6th X3 flare last night with an earth facing CME. This is the biggest of the flares so far so it might get interesting. If you have solar panels it would be a good idea to flip off the breaker until after the weekend. Again, there may not be any issues however strong solar flares can cause surges in solar panels which could do damage to the grid (if grid tied) or to your home electronics. I flipped mine off last night.
Quite a few localized ones. Starlink and Sirius XM had some issues (Elon even posted on X that the satellites were getting hammered). Disney + had issues yesterday as did many gaming platforms. Some regional cell issues etc.
The storms are continuing #6 hits tonight, and #7 tomorrow
If you felt a little "off" yesterday or today. You might be able to blame the sun.
Thanks for keeping us posted, Todd. I hope we don't get toasted by one of those, though on one level it would be nice to see social media disappear for awhile.
Unfortunately due to cloud cover in Toronto I never got a glimpse of the Northern Lights this time around. I've seen them before but my wife wanted to witness them as well.
I do remember seeing them in Timmins and also in Iceland. They are fascinating and they give a sense of the forces at work in the universe. It shrinks us down to scale.
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67 Chevelle Malibu Sport Coupe, Oshawa-built 250 PG never disturbed.
In garage, 296 cid inline six & TH350...
Cam, Toronto.
I don't judge a man by how far he's fallen, but by how far back he bounces - Patton
