this post was submitted on 16 May 2024
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I had to look it up, the Carrington Event was a solar flare that impacted the entire globe and caused telegraph stations to set on fire in the 1800s. It's the biggest magnetic storm in recorded history, and would lead to global devastation if another one that size impacted Earth due to our reliance on electronics
Thanks for the info!
Just like all storms, the geomagnetic storm scale is imperfect. It maxes out at G5, so it's possible for a substantially worse storm to be in the same category as what we saw last weekend.
The 2003 event produced the biggest-ever solar flare ever measured, an X45. That year, several BIG transformers exploded in South Africa. This event's biggest so is 8.7. A lot depends on where it's aimed at ... but anyway , no, we are not prepared.