Solar Flares The largest solar flare in 4 years occurred today. It might knock out some power grids.
As I've previously warned, if we don't harden the grids and nuclear power plants against electromagnetic forces, a solar flare could eventually cause widespread nuclear disasters which make Fukushima look tame.This solar event was no where near large enough to knock out power grids. The flare itself was small (M2.5 x-ray event and not very large optically either). The coronal mass ejection associated with it has an earthward directed component, but its velocity is no where near fast enough to inflict anything more than a period of modest northern lights activity (or southern lights, depending on where you liveLet's put this into perspective. We are just coming out of a solar minimum where solar flare activity is sparse. In two or so years, we will be near the maximum of the 11-year cycle, where solar flares of this size are so common, no one thinks twice when they occur. An M5.0 event is considered a major flare. X-class events are usually the ones that are associated with stronger coronal mass ejections.
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