I’ve read that if things are off and not powered that they wouldn’t be affected. You could kill the power to your house and shut off battery powered items and be okay.
Maybe I’m wrong though. Also, I’ve read the sun is monitored for such things we would have 10 minutes or so of time to prepare.
More like a couple of days. Coronal mass ejections (which is what the Carrington event was) can be seen leaving the sun, there’s good software to track and predict their trajectories and how much they dissipate (or don’t) en route.
No CME has an arrival time on the order of 10 mnutes.
Solar flares, on the other hand, are very near light speed. By the time you see one, it’s already hit you.
This is a case of 'it depends '. The damage isn’t caused by something being on or off. It’s everywhere. Disconnecting can isolate damage from small storms, but world ending storms have enough energy to jump air gaps and the surges would be faster than most breakers can react to. You’d physically have to rip the cables from your house to be safe. Smaller, battery powered devices would be more susceptible regardless if they were on/off. Batteries are a concern because you don’t want them to incur damage/blow up due to an electric surge.
If this sounds overblown remember that during the Carrington Event, telegraph lines continued to operate for hours even after batteries were removed. In some cases, lines sparked and damaged equipment or personnel. These are very powerful storms that naturally induce electric current in circuitry.
Along with NOAA SWPC (which is a target in Trump’s war on science), the UK Met Office and a Chinese government agency have 24/7 human-staffed space weather ops centers.
ESA monitoring by human forecasters, to the best of my knowledge, isn’t 24/7-- but the satellite feeds are.
I’ve read that if things are off and not powered that they wouldn’t be affected. You could kill the power to your house and shut off battery powered items and be okay.
Maybe I’m wrong though. Also, I’ve read the sun is monitored for such things we would have 10 minutes or so of time to prepare.
More like a couple of days. Coronal mass ejections (which is what the Carrington event was) can be seen leaving the sun, there’s good software to track and predict their trajectories and how much they dissipate (or don’t) en route.
No CME has an arrival time on the order of 10 mnutes.
Solar flares, on the other hand, are very near light speed. By the time you see one, it’s already hit you.
That makes sense considering light takes 8 minutes.
This is a case of 'it depends '. The damage isn’t caused by something being on or off. It’s everywhere. Disconnecting can isolate damage from small storms, but world ending storms have enough energy to jump air gaps and the surges would be faster than most breakers can react to. You’d physically have to rip the cables from your house to be safe. Smaller, battery powered devices would be more susceptible regardless if they were on/off. Batteries are a concern because you don’t want them to incur damage/blow up due to an electric surge.
If this sounds overblown remember that during the Carrington Event, telegraph lines continued to operate for hours even after batteries were removed. In some cases, lines sparked and damaged equipment or personnel. These are very powerful storms that naturally induce electric current in circuitry.
before Musk fired everyone.
The ESA also monitors space weather.
Along with NOAA SWPC (which is a target in Trump’s war on science), the UK Met Office and a Chinese government agency have 24/7 human-staffed space weather ops centers.
ESA monitoring by human forecasters, to the best of my knowledge, isn’t 24/7-- but the satellite feeds are.