Solar Storm

Super Tuesday was not very exciting.  After days of hyped-up promotion by all the cable channels, the Big Night finally arrived.  Special studio sets!  Special theme music!  Fancy electronic vote tally boards!  Legions of experts ready to examine each state's race under the microscope!  Then, at 7:00 p.m. a kind of information brown-out set in.  Over a period of several hours the vote totals dribbled in, leaving TV anchors to announce breathlessly that "Mitt Romney now has a commanding lead in Ohio!... but of course, as of this moment only 2% of the vote has been counted."

While the Talking Heads droned on, Mother Nature provided a diversion.  Two solar flares at 7:00 and 8:15 p.m. EST produced coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and sent truckloads of solar particles racing toward Mars and Earth.  Below are two NASA photos of one of these flares.

(NASA Photo)

(NASA Photo)

For movies and more information on these solar events, go to:  http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/news/News030712-X5-4.html

CMEs are significant because they can distort the Earth's magnetic field, play havoc with satellite communications, disrupt your car's GPS unit, and overload the electrical grid.  Cable TV dutifully warned viewers of the potential looming disaster, which was scheduled to hit Earth between 1:00 and 5:00 a.m. today.  On a more positive note, these CMEs also promised to kick the Northern Lights into high gear, possibly making them visible as far south as the Great Lakes.  Well, I was up at 3:00 and 5:00 this morning and the only thing I could see out my window were rain clouds!  Drat!

Many years ago, on two separate occasions, I saw the Northern Lights here at Presque Isle.  They are truly one of nature's wonders, and well worth getting up early to see.

Today's solar storm is now rated a G1 on a scale of G1-5.  That's a nice way of saying that this solar storm didn't live up to its advance billing.  In that respect it's rather like the Republican primary race this year. •••