I thought large solar eruptions or solar storms (not sure proper terminology for most recent event) were expected to cause a fair amount of damage to electrical grids, communication services, and GPS, but I haven’t seen any reports of that. Why?
In: Planetary Science
On top of everything that has been said here, this solar storm was a baby compared to the Carrington event of 1859, which had estimated solar wind magnetic field strengths of -800 to -1700 nT. The highest I noted during this storm was -60 nT. Even the 1989 geomagnetic storm that collapsed the Quebec power grid was recorded at around -400 to -500 nT. I’m sure we’ll see visible effects if we get a storm of that level again.
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