Enormous solar storms

[wolram]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/10/151026112106.htm

Will a solar storm hit us soon, or was this a one off event

 

[phinds]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/10/151026112106.htm

Will a solar storm hit us soon, or was this a one off event

Impossible to say and depends on the definition of "soon". It WILL happen, but it could be next week or it could be thousands of years (and by "it" I mean the Earth getting hit by a storm that would knock out all satellites and power grids on that side of the planet).

 

[davenn]

Will a solar storm hit us soon, or was this a one off event

We get hit by blasts of particles from the sun on a very regular basis. But the mega ones being suggested in that article
obviously much rarer.
Over the next few days around 1to 5 Nov. there's going to be more geomagnetic storming with lots of aurora
as a large coronal hole becomes geo-effective. This will be followed by possible solar flares from a returning
quite large sunspot group.

On a side note, this current solar max has been one of the lowest level ones on the last 5 solar cycles. and the
next one in 11 yrs time is predicted to be even worse ( lower level), the sun appears to be going into a quieter
time, maybe similar to the Maunder Minimum that occurred between 1645 and 1715


Dave