Coronal Mass Ejection May Cause Disruptions, Being Called Solar Tsunami by Some

Source SDO

Are you prepared to deal with communications disruptions, power outages and other effects from solar storms? If you haven't yet considered the possibility that your business could be disrupted by such an event, read on.

Four large Coronal Mass Ejection's or CME's occurred on the 1st of August (see August 1, 2010 CME) causing an intense light show when they arrived here on August 2nd. NOAA forecasters are expecting the second cloud to arrive either tonight or tomorrow on August 5th.

While the Sun has been quiet for some time now, two of the four CME's that I am aware of, are being called Solar Tsunami's by the media, were Earth facing and classified as a C-3 and a C-2 in the solar flare classification scale.

Why is this an important event? Because scientists are concerned that the electrical impulses may damage certain parts of our infrastructure such as the power grids, telephone lines and several satellites may also be damaged by the event.

Since I am always looking at emerging events that can disrupt your business, I'd like to point out that I  wrote about this topic last July in the following post: Sun Spots, Solar Flares, and Geomagnetic Induced Currents Can Disrupt Your Business.

Truthfully, these current CMS's shouldn't do anything more than provide a spectacular light show, but disruptions can still occur. The one to watch will be the predicted soalr storm of 2013 if it happenes. We will provide updates to this event as it unfolds if anything important surrounding it occurs.

The estimated time of arrival of the event is list as follows: 

• Wednesday, August 4 – 07:00 UTC
• Wednesday, August 4 – 17:00 UTC
• Thursday, August 5 – 00:00 UTC
• Thursday, August 5 – 06:00 UTC