Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Power Companies Have Been Alerted

A few days ago I posted about 'A Year Without Electricity'. 

Tuesday night a large solar explosion happened and the particles are racing towards earth as we speak.

But fear not....the power companies have been alerted to watch for possible outages.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The largest solar flare in five years is racing toward Earth, threatening to unleash a torrent of charged particles that could disrupt power grids, GPS and airplane flights.

The sun erupted Tuesday evening, and the effects should start smacking Earth around 7 a.m. EST Thursday, according to forecasters at the federal government's Space Weather Prediction Center. They say the flare is growing as it speeds outward from the sun.

But there is the potential for widespread problems. Solar storms have three ways they can disrupt technology on Earth: with magnetic, radio and radiation emissions. This is an unusual situation when all three types of solar storm disruptions are likely to be strong, Kunches said.

That means "a whole host of things" could follow, he said.

The magnetic part of the storm has the potential to trip electrical power grids. Kunches said power companies around the Earth have been alerted for possible outages. The timing and speed of the storm determines whether it will knock off power grids, he said.

Read more: http://www.seattlepi.com/business/article/Solar-storm-headed-toward-Earth-may-disrupt-power-3388727.php#ixzz1oSnhGSfO

OK...as my previous post already described, I don't like living without electricity...because it is no fun.  I hardly made it a day without getting a bit concerned.  So what happens to my "fun index" if this crashing solar storm knocks out our power grid for two days...or two weeks....or two months?

With no electricity, I can't blog!!  And your computer doesn't work to read it anyway!!

Well, according to scientists, we here in Minnesota should start to feel the solar storm about 6 AM Thursday morning...so if you get no blogging from me on Thursday, you will know that, once again, I am sitting in the dark.

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