PICK OF THE WEEK: Eight Busy Days

[SOHO]

The Sun popped off about one coronal mass ejection per day over this eight-day period...



More... (http://soho.nascom.nasa.gov/pickoftheweek/old/22feb2013/)

[happyuk]

This is corroborated by Prof. Paul Cannon, Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, no less.

"Our assessment is that there will be a challenge for the UK and the western world in general.
When one of these events occurs but it will not be cataclysmic. The impact that we will see
will only last of the order of one, two, three days for most of the population. It's possible that
in terms of the electricity grid some people will be without power for a little longer"

"The first thing that a lot of people will notice is that their sat-nav will stop working. People really
do need to remember to keep a map in the car. Mobile phone technology was something that we
really worried about when we started this work. And we found, much to our pleasure, that the UK
mobile phone network appears to be resilient to [?] weather events which is as I say, rather good"

"Interestingly, it would appear that the United States cellular phone network, because it uses a slightly
different standard, will not be resilient, and may really suffer quite badly"

Among some other interesting assertions. See intervierw here:

http://www.itn.co.uk/UK/68124/solar-superstorm-will-pose-a-challenge-for-the-uk