Major Solar Storm Stuns Scientists And Threatens Power Grid

(Before It's News)

Image source: NASA

A severe solar storm with the potential to disrupt wireless communications, GPS and the electric power grid took scientists by surprise on St. Patrick’s Day – and has experts worried because the federal government’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) did not anticipate it.

“Our models showed we were just going to receive a glancing blow from this cloud coming off the sun,” Thomas Berger, the SPWC’s director, acknowledged in an interview with The Baltimore Sun. “We are now thinking we caught more than just a glancing blow.”

No major disruptions to communications, GPS or electricity were reported, but some minor fluctuations did occur on Tuesday afternoon, The Washington Post reported. The solar or geomagnetic storm has scientists concerned because its behavior did not match the models they use to predict such events.

On Sunday, the SPWC had predicted a storm would hit but expected it to be much weaker than it actually was. Berger’s team was taken by surprise when the storm intensified and arrived 15 hours earlier than expected on Tuesday. The storm lasted about 12 hours with lingering effects for 24 hours.

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Source: http://www.offthegridnews.com/grid-threats/major-solar-storm-stuns-scientists-and-threatens-power-grid/