THE GREAT GEOMAGNETIC STORM OF MAY 1921

[svetz]

You know a solar storm is serious when buildings catch on fire. It really happened 100 years ago today.

On May 15, 1921, the biggest solar storm of the 20th century hit Earth. Around 02:00 GMT that Sunday morning a telegraph exchange in Sweden burst into flames. Across the Atlantic, the same thing was going on in New York. Flames engulfed the switch-board at the Brewster station of the Central New England Railroad and quickly spread to destroy the whole building. During the conflagration, long distance telephone lines burned out in New Brunswick; voltages on telegraph lines in the USA spiked as high as 1000 V; and auroras were sighted by ships at sea crossing the equator. It was a Big. Solar. Storm.

Click here to read more. This was big, but still smaller than the September 1859 Carrington Event. The March 1989 geomagnetic storm was smaller but still knocked out power across large sections of Quebec. On July 23, 2012 a "Carrington-class" solar superstorm was observed; its trajectory narrowly missed Earth.

ref

CMEs can happen several times a day when the sun is most active. During its quieter periods, CMEs occur only about once every five days.

But, Earth is a small target very far away. On average they only hit the Earth every 25 years.


Will a solar storm knock us back into the stone age?
Probably not, experts say a lot of what's on TV horror EMP films is just wrong. But it could cause widespread electrical outages for weeks meaning no water, no TV, no gasoline, no using credit cards to pay for things. Usually, disasters are local and FEMA could roll in to provide basic needs, but a countrywide disaster would overwhelm them. Fortunately, it's the same sort of thing you'd normally prep for any disaster, so have some food and water stocked in the pantry.

Will my car work?
Cars with metal bodies act like a faraday cage, and studies of ICE vehicles predicted only 1 in 50 would fail. I haven't seen any information on how EVs would do, but the electronics overall are fairly similar except for the electric motor and chargers. Possibly a cybertruck with a stainless steel body and transparent aluminum windows might do well if it's not plugged into the grid.

How much Warning will we get?
Probably none unless you do it yourself.

But that's just my opinion. It takes a CME somewhere between 15 hours to 5 days to reach us. We have satellites in place that can warn us and systems setup to get the warning out. But, the government has to choose to warn the public, and this is something unfamiliar so they might not take it seriously enough to get the warning out early enough.

Warned, the public could just go to their breaker box and disconnect from the grid for a few hours. That would probably be sufficient to prevent most homes from any damage. Utilities could also monitor the situation and as most grid substations can disconnect (it's how the operators do rolling blackouts), they could proactively disconnect the substation. That would both protect the substation and residents it served from the very high voltages along very long transmission lines that a CME is most likely to interact with. Given the Quebec incident, I'm guessing they don't generally monitor it or have a plan.


Other Threads you might enjoy: Where the power might go out from a solar storm

 

[FilterGuy]

Interesting article.

It takes a CME somewhere between 15 hours to 5 days to reach us. We have satellites in place that can warn us and systems setup to get the warning out. But, the government has to choose to warn the public, and this is something unfamiliar so they might not take it seriously enough to get the warning out early enough.

Even if a warning went out (with instructions), I doubt most people would do much about it for two reasons: 1) as the article says, it is unfamiliar so folks will be hesitant 2) our governments have been trying to scare us about everything for so long that trust in the government is extremely low. The first reaction for most folks will be "that is all BS".

Possibly a cybertruck with a stainless steel body and transparent aluminum windows might do well if it's not plugged into the grid.

Transparent aluminum (aluminum oxynitride) is not conductive.... (Too bad Scotty did not predict Conductive Transparent Aluminum ?)

Speaking of transparent aluminum.... I have been following it for a while and have high hopes it will be commercialized and come down in price. If Tesla is truly trying use it for the trucks then I have some hope it will become more affordable as they work on the manufacturing techniques. (The materials are already cheap (Aluminum, Oxygen & Hydrogen)

It may never be cheap enough for my bedroom window, but things like watch faces, cellphones and Eye Glasses could be possible.

 

[svetz]

Transparent aluminum (aluminum oxynitride) is not conductive....

Copper tinting?

 

[MrNatural22]

…..people would flee in fevered panic when the massive genetic mutations emerge resulting from the storm during the huge steady bombardment of EMP radiation !!!?