Solar Storm Warnings: Earth Is Hours From A Potentially Dangerous Solar Storm

According to reports from NASA, Spaceweather.com, and the scientific community, Earth is about to get hit by a solar storm.

The CME that is headed toward Earth was part of a cluster of M-Class solar flares erupting starting on August 1. These all emanated from a particular sunspot that NASA and NOAA have been regularly monitoring due to its potential for activity and its size. So far, there’s been reports of rolling shortwave radio blackouts occurring around the planet.

Dangers Associated With August 4th thru August 5th Solar Storm

With every solar storm comes a degree of danger. While Earth regularly gets hit with solar storms, and this one is predicted to be a minor one, the right set of circumstances can make things far worse.

If there is the presence of solar winds and a co-rotating interaction region, or what NASA calls CIR, then the particles carried by solar flares can escape the magnetosphere of Earth and enter the lower atmosphere. That’s what has the power to exponentially increase the impact of the storm.

Small satellites can be damaged, wireless communication such as GPS and mobile networks can be interrupted, and the internet can be disrupted. All of that might be harmless in the short term, but ground-based electronics can be overloaded.

Solar storms can grow in intensity, particularly when multiple flares erupt from the same place. Coronal Mass Ejections, or CMEs, have recently been referred to as cannibal CMEs because when one erupts and a more forceful one follows, the two interact and mix with each other as they head toward a celestial body, such as planets.

It’s much the way the name suggests, one follows another, overtakes it, and consumes its energy, becoming a much bigger CME.

CMEs are massive bursts of solar wind, solar plasma, and magnetic fields that are ejected from the Sun's corona into space. If multiple CMEs were to occur in close succession or interact in some way, they might influence each other's paths, speeds, and overall behavior due to the complex interplay of magnetic fields and charged particles.

In a speculative scenario, the term "cannibal CME" could metaphorically imply one CME engulfing or merging with another, leading to altered dynamics and potentially more powerful space weather effects when they reach Earth or other celestial bodies

It’s much the way the name suggests, one follows another, overtakes it, and consumes its energy, becoming a much bigger CME.

Even as this storm is predicted to be a relatively minor event, likely to create some more visible auroras, as there were others from the same spot, scientists are monitoring for changes in the size or ferocity of the storm.

So, keep your eyes peeled on a clear night like tonight, if you’re lucky enough the weather cooperates. You might get a chance to see an aurora in places more southerly than normal. Or, you might find yourself without the internet and your cell service might be disrupted. Worst case scenario, tomorrow starts the longest power outage in US history, as one of these becoming a monster could bring about a storm the level of the Carrington Event.

Why would a scenario in 1859 be so alarming today? The Carrington Event of 1859 is still considered by many in the scientific community to be the mother of all solar storms. It was, to put it simply, that powerful of a storm.

During the event, farmers woke to do their chores as early as two in the morning, because the animals woke them and the light coming from the auroras was that bright. The electromagnetic charge of the particles during that storm caused telegraph operators to get shocked.

Translate that same degree of power to the 21st century and there's the belief by many in the scientific community that our power grid will fail. Once that's down, as so much of our communications is dependent on satellites and the internet, everything else goes down. Even the ability to fuel a vehicle would be null, as everything is digital.

Follow Spaceweather.com, NASA.gov, and NOAA.gov for all the alerts and news about these potentially catastrophic events.