Solar storm to bombard Earth on Tuesday - largest solar outburst in six years

[Syd]

There was a blackout in Barrow, Alaska on 1/23/12. Two electric motors caught fire at a College there. This was posted on Kerry Cassidy's blog today.

[astrid]

Thanks Syd!

[NeverMind]

Posted by MorningSong (here)
Yes, I agree with you , NeverMind....all is still very quiet.... there was only a little burp of activity so far..... but this sun "fluff" will get here...probably during the next 6 hours....


So this will probably blow over without having any great "effects" on anyone except for us bozos who like to watch it transpire. This is not the "big" one, no doubt.... it's just a little flirt.

Oh, see, I did misunderstand the expected effects, then. If it's mostly about auroras, then I am 99 % sure it will be a "happy day" for aurora-chasers, as SpaceWeather called it. :-)
It thought it was more about possible disruptions and such.

I did see the auroras in 2005.... I remember as Mars was also in the headlines at the time as being very close to Earth.

Mars' closest approach was in August 2003. A summer I will never ever forget. (Nor will many others, I am sure, if not necessarily for the best reasons.)
That was the summer of intense heat in Europe, when thousands of people died, especially elderly people in France.

And Mars was there - not that it had anything to do with the heat. :-)
I used to watch it every night with my mother (who loved it).
An unforgettable summer.
(Which is why I am here waxing about it. )

[Wantsthetruth74]

Hm, I don't even have a headache?? (YET) lol this sort of stuff usually affects me physically and emotionally. So far nothing.

[MorningSong]

Sorry for my memory failure..... it was in 2003 that I saw the auroras.... and they are not just "pretty lights in the sky" as some may think...they are signs of charged plasm in our atmosphere, that is radiation that will have an effect on all living creatures..... spaceweather et. al. never talk about that...

Here's news about another black-out...coincidence or caused by the flares?

Lights flicker on after blackout in Brazil
Officials scramble to restore power to 60 million

RIO DE JANEIRO — Heavy rain, lightning and strong winds caused blackouts that left nearly a third of Brazilians — 60 million people — in the dark, officials said Wednesday as they scrambled to restore confidence in the country’s infrastructure before soccer’s 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics.

The weather made transformers on a vital high-voltage transmission line short-circuit, Brazil’s energy minister said. Two other transmission lines also went down as part of an automatic safety mechanism.

“The problem was exclusively with the transmission lines,” Energy Minister Edison Lobao said.

The blackout cut electricity to 18 of Brazil’s 26 states and left them without power for up to four hours Tuesday night. The federal district that includes the national capital of Brasilia was spared. About 7 million people also lost water service in Sao Paulo. All of Paraguay briefly lost power.

The massive Itaipu dam on the border with Paraguay — the world’s second-largest hydroelectric power producer — was completely shut down for the first time in its 25-year history.

In Brazil’s largest cities of Rio and Sao Paulo, people were trapped in elevators, stranded on commuter trains or stuck in sweltering apartments during unusually hot spring temperatures that have hit the 90s.

Olympic concerns
“I wonder how this could have happened and am worried about what it does to Brazil’s image, especially with the World Cup and Olympics coming up,” said Wesley Aragao, a 24-year-old sailor who waited out the blackout at his parents’ house in northern Rio. “Nobody likes to be left in the dark.”

The Brazilian Olympic Committee would not comment on Tuesday’s blackout, but among the guarantees made to the International Olympic Committee is that Rio will be isolated from the nation’s power system exactly to avoid problems like this. The city will have its own direct energy feed during the games....

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33844757.../#.Tx-WIXKwXXI

[Monitor]

Flights rerouted as massive solar storm hits SYDNEY Morning Herlad(Australia):

Solar radiation from a massive sun storm -- the largest in nearly a decade -- collided with the Earth's atmosphere yesterday, prompting an airline to reroute flights and skywatchers to seek out spectacular light displays.

US carrier Delta Air Lines said it had adjusted flight routes for transpolar journeys between Asia and the United States to avoid problems caused by the radiation storm, a spokesman said.

NASA confirmed the coronal mass ejection (CME) began colliding with Earth's magnetic field around 3pm GMT on Tuesday (2am this morning AEDT), adding that the storm was now being considered the largest since October 2003.

Advertisement: Story continues below Radiation storms are not harmful to humans, on Earth at least, according to the US space agency. They can, however, can affect satellite operations and short wave radio.

The storm's radiation, likely to continue bombarding Earth's atmosphere through Wednesday, and its possible disruption to satellite communications in the polar regions prompted the flight rerouting, airline officials said.

Atlanta-based Delta, the world's second largest airline, said "a handful" of routes had their journey adjusted "based on potential impact" of the solar storm on communications equipment, spokesman Anthony Black said.

Routes from Hong Kong, Shanghai and Seoul took a more southerly route after the solar flare erupted on Sunday.

The airline said it would continue to monitor solar activity before return flights to their normal routes.

Due to the unusual intensity of the photons raining on Earth, the spectacular aurora borealis -- the stunning "Northern Lights" display -- which is often seen closer to the Arctic pole at this time of year, has been seen as far south as Scotland and northern England, and at lower latitudes in the United States.

The event started late Sunday with a moderate-sized solar flare that erupted right near the center of the Sun, said Doug Biesecker, a physicist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Space Weather Prediction Center.

"The flare itself was nothing spectacular, but it sent off a very fast coronal mass ejection traveling four million miles per hour (6.4 million kilometres per hour)," he said.

Space weather watchers said the best aurora sightings are normally around midnight local time.

Rob Stammes, who runs the Lofoten Polar Light Centre in Lofoten, Norway said the CME's arrival Tuesday had produced a surge in ground currents outside his laboratory.

"This could be a happy day for many aurora watchers," he told aurora tracker website spaceweather.com

AFP

[Black Panther]

Northern Lights: The Aurora Borealis visible over northern England and Scotland:

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQLtgucYL3s

CME Produces Wonderful Northern Lights Show Over UK:

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZsB2EnjCyw

Northern Lights Molde, Norway 2012:

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaG67PmaATY

Mapping the northern lights
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/in...a-borealis-map