Sun goes crazy this week, your GPS might suffer.
The sun launched some huge solar flares this week which sent 3 large CME’s towards the Earth. The impact will be fluctuation of GPS, power grids and communications. Below is a model of the CME or Coronal Mass Ejection moving towards the earth.
The latest on the impacts and what this all means from the NOAA Space Weather Center.
2300Z, August 4, 2011 – The first of the three shocks arrived at 2155Z, about one hour ago. So far, only slight disturbances to the geomagnetic field, but there is plenty of action still anticipated. See a video of a SWPC researcher talking about this activity and what we can expect: Video
1500Z, August 4, 2011 – Great anticipation for the first of what may be three convergent shocks to slam the geomagnetic field in the next twelve hours, +/-. The CME with the Radio Blackout earlier today is by far the fastest, and may catch its forerunners in the early hours of August 5 (UTC) — at earth.
Two impacts are expected; G2 (Moderate) to G3 (Strong) Geomagnetic Storming on August 5, and potentially elevated protons to the S2 (Moderate) Solar Radiation Storm condition, those piling up ahead of the shock. The source of it all, Region 1261, is still hot, so more eruptions are possible.
