NOAA Forecasts Solar Storm (G4) | Hacker News Reader

NOAA Forecasts Solar Storm (G4)

swpc.noaa.gov

87 pointsgeerlingguy27 comments

For anyone curious how severe a G4 is (like me), there's an overview here: https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/noaa-scales-explanation

The scale goes up to G5, so this one is pretty serious.

At the same time, it seems there's on average 9 events like this every year, so it's not very serious as far as a lay person is concerned.

https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/noaa-scales-explanation

    Average Frequency
    (1 cycle = 11 years)

    100 per cycle

While this is true, not many of them hit earth... which these are. Which is why this is a thing now. They also aren't uniformly distributed over that time period.

>SWPC's first G4 watch since Jan. 2005

>The last Extreme (G5) event occurred with the Halloween Storms in 2003.

>so it's not very serious

Why are there so many people misrepresenting information? What's the purpose?, we're just going to look it up ourselves and see that you were wittingly or unwittingly lying.

https://www.spaceweather.gov/news/severe-geomagnetic-stormin...

As I understand it, solar storms can cause issues with very-large-systems that span long distances. Inducing current etc, which then could damage equipment.

I'm unsure if there's any precautions individual offices or housing can (or should?) take. I assume your "local substation blows up" before the errant current can get to you.

However these are just my impressions, I'm no engineer, and I'd love someone who knows to step in and confirm or deny.

what about the long lines in between the local substation and you? why would they not be susceptible to this as well? at the end of the day, you are responsible for the equipment in your house regardless of what protections you think the service may or may not have. surge protectors are available. battery back ups are available. even line conditioners are available.

You could flip the main breaker to your house off at the panel.

Yes, like the carrington event that caused some telegraphs stations to catch fire. Said telegraph lines were low voltage, 5-12v I believe.

Trick is long distance power lines tend to have very high voltages, to save on the cost of copper. Said lines will be a boost from Geomagnetic storms, but not enough to noticeably change the voltage on a high voltage line.

So on the SDO website, which filter shows the event best? I generally like to check in daily via:

https://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/dashboard/?d=0171

But this event doesnt look much compared to some we've had on this peaking solar cycle.

btw anyone else follows SDO? what is the rotating effect around 17:35 8th UT? Sometimes I also see swipes top-to-bottom and left-to-right, almost like the instrument has little windscreen wipers :) And occasional what appears to be a planet passing by, is that possible?

Anyway I highly recommend that site for anyone that wants to see just how beautiful our star is. Sometimes a little scary when you consider the scale of some of these structures!

Not an expert, but I thought the AIA 335 imaging was quite striking.

Well guys (and ladies), if civilization collapses from a Carrington-like event, I must preemptively say, it has been mostly a pleasure reading you all :)

This is a G4, with a 100 or so equivalent storms predicted for every 11 year cycle. I wouldn’t worry too much.

I saw that stat on their chart. My question with it is 100 or so storms per cycle that just burp out into space period, or is it 100 or so per cycle that interact with Earth?

That statistic is under the heading "Geomagnetic Storms", so one would assume it's talking purely about interactions with the magnetosphere.

This is a G5.

As I know physics, all these could cause low frequency interference, or even some relatively low voltage DC.

Most people will not see any significant effects (except Aurora), but electric distribution equipment safety fuses are very sensitive, so very possible for them to detect false alarms and turn off power lines.

Same problem with railways, as many still use 100years old low voltage signalling to control arrows/semaphores and other equipment - they could gather "air electricity" on long lines (wires and rails) and could happen malfunction.

All modern equipment, approximately after 1960s, use galvanic isolation and high frequency signalling, which is immune to low frequency interference.

Europe getting very pink

https://www.foto-webcam.eu/webcam/lucknerhaus/

Are there any observable effects of such events that I can see on everyday equipment? Something like increased Bit Flips caused by Cosmic Rays or such?

The solar inverter here on the farm dropped off-grid 18 times between 11:30 and 16:15 here on western Sweden, on closer observation this seems to be caused by the voltage running too high (up to 250V AC where 230V is normal). This happened while the Swedish electricity networks have shifted down their production to make sure they have spare capacity in case of damage due to the current geomagnetic storm.

I'll be getting my camera ready tonight. Hopefully no cloud cover will block the Aurora I'm planning to capture.

I wonder how many Starlinks they lose from this sort of event?

I mean they're LEO but still, I would expect some effect

It actually took out forty or so in a past event, in 2022: https://spaceweatherarchive.com/2022/09/13/the-starlink-inci...

I think a number of satellite operators will be watching the sky closely.

wow. thats a brutally expensive bit of "act of god" to have to deal with every so often.

If it is not a black swan event it should had been considered in the budget.

Lose temporarily or permanently?

The damage from the last coronal mass ejection to the starlink satellites in LEO were permanent. From what I understand it was due to the units loss of navigation and orbital corrections and they burned up in the atmosphere.

CNN HQ is/was apparently pushed onto generator power due to a surge on Georgia Power's switchgear from one of the G4 pulses.

μtopic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40323186

Reply on news.ycombinator.com