Big M and X class flares headed our way now

[patrick]

http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/rt_plots/Xray_1m.gif

http://www.theweatherspace.com/news/TWS-09_06_2011_mclass.html

Earthquakes guaranteed 

[patrick]

A 6.7 at Vancouver Island, we can expect more earthquakes on this scale over the weekend.

[Ullan]

I think we saw what the CME's did yesterday :)

 

The official story is still that south California, Arizona and parts of Baja lost power due to an 'unknown' error in a switching station. In the past it has been shown that the impact (or even a glancing blow) from a CME can induce electric currents in exposed wiring. This most certainly applies to a switching station, which would then shut down due to an overload.

 

There's several more on the way, and spot 1283 is still active (but facing away from Earth now).

 

On a more personal note, I had to rewire my phone line after it 'inexplicably' went down at the exact same time California lost power. Hmmm... :)

[Bishop]

omg, i was really feeling like shit on sunday/monday, this is probably the reason why.

[Ullan]

An M5.3 and an X2.1 class flare did indeed originate from sun spot 1283 as it was facing nigh directly towards earth. Given the nature of this phenomenon, the radiation emitted from these bursts has already hit earth and dissipated. Any effects that would have been caused by the flares directly would thus already have occurred.

At the same time, these eruptions hurled two CME's into space, vaguely earth directed. As plasma travels much slower than radiation, we won't know if these are going to hit earth or not until late evening 9/8, early morning 9/9. SOHO observation currently predicts both CME's will just miss earth though may trigger a geomagnetic storm due to their proximity of passage.

Not the end of the world by a long shot.

[simpleman]

We felt it here since Sunday.