The Core
Why We Are Here => Hardware & Technology => Topic started by: rcjordan on January 23, 2014, 06:35:17 PM
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2011:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/03/110302-solar-flares-sun-storms-earth-danger-carrington-event-science/
2014:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/01/08/260854919/solar-flare-will-hit-earth-thursday-northern-lights-may-expand-south
I'm trying not to appear to be a survivalist hunkering down in his Arizona bunker. But if when a flare comes like the Carrington Event again, it'll devastate the grid, not just electronics and communications. Search on "hardened grids" and you'll see we don't have many.
So, without readily-available-at-your-doorstep electricity for weeks or months, how do you think the great urban masses will fare? Not too well, I'm thinking.
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We were without power for a week in 2011 in the winter and 3 days without power in the summer in 2009. It was no party.
The thing that most people in a city don't realize is that only so much water has been pumped up to where it can be gravity fed. When the power goes out and you drain your uphill reservoir, the water stops running, and that's when the power outage starts to get really unpleasant. At some point the diesel backup generators for the phone system go out too, and then it gets lonely.
People who live in the country with a well, a septic system and a lot more DIY infrastructure have mostly experienced this, but few people in a city have.
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I only recently had a conversation about the electric and if it went off with the misses.
She turns around and said at least we will be warm as we have gas central heating system, to which I replied so what controls it?
When you think about it, it's crazy how much we rely on electric
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have to admit we have a general mid term plan to be able to be off grid if necessary - we have a multifuel stove as well as central heating, use gas as well as electric (electric ignition but you can get around that) and solar panels although no battery storage yet. plus a generator which we could use if necessary - but its by no means perfect - unless we had prior warning and could stockpile diesel for the generator not sure how we'd be pumping it with no power to the petrol station! We have plenty of water in the butts but not really drinking quality - I guess we could rig something on boiling it and could gather it fresh for drinking as long as we had some rain.
Our thoughts are really that we have about 10 power cuts a year where we are - often for a day at a time - if we go properly rural it becomes more likely and we want to be able to cope with that. I'm not sure we'd ever go the full prepper route and be ready for total anarchy, although it's sort of interesting thinking the options through
It does slightly scare me that I know people in their 40's who can't do a basic fix on anything ... the hysteria in the UK over Christmas when people lost power was a real eye opener over how bad things could get if the sh## ever really hits the fan!
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When the exposed grid is fried by an EMP, the wires distributing electricity from our generating sources are physically damaged, insulation burns away, shorts happen, transformers die. It will take literally months or years, even mobilizing every man and robot we have available, to rebuild. There will be no "quickly stringing a cord" to flow a couple of megawatts into the cities. Within days, maybe hours, it will become apparent that the government will not be able to restore power quickly. All cellphones are out. All satellites are gone. Even many cars & trucks are disabled. Mass transit is shut down. Elevators stopped. No way to respond to fires.
http://www.intelligentutility.com/magazine/article/300329/sandy-and-smart-grid-who-won
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A lot of the stuff RC mentions, I can't really prepare for but I have tried to to do some things like Gurtie has done.
Stockpiled a supply of propane cylinders and a propane camp heater and stove.
If gasoline becomes scarce I have a scooter that gets 90 mpg to go to stores.
Last year I bought a couple of dehydrated food emergency tubs from Costco.
I've thought about a generator but I doubt it would survive the emp. Still its on the list.
I'd like to put a wood pellet stove in the basement.
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<added>
Roscoe Bartlett:
- A science career that saw him go through IBM in its start-up years and the U.S. Navy as an engineer
- Past Director of the Space Life Sciences research group at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
- 20 yrs in US Congress, now retired
- Senior consultant for Lineage Technologies, a cybersecurity group that seeks to protect supply chains
Read this article. See what he's doing in his retirement years:
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/01/roscoe-bartlett-congressman-off-the-grid-101720_full.html
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<added>
>water
Gurtie, get one of these:
http://www.amazon.com/Vestergaard-Frandsen-527950-LifeStraw-Personal-Filter/dp/B006QF3TW4/
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Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought...
That's me!
Bigger & better:
Plushttp://www.amazon.com/Katadyn-Vario-Multi-Water-Microfilter/dp/B000KUVVY4/ref=sr_1_3?s=sporting-goods&ie=UTF8&qid=1390577023&sr=1-3&keywords=Water+Filter
with extra filters.
4 tubs of Costco FOOD
Here in North Carolina people tend to cook with electric stoves.
We installed gas when we moved in.
50 Gallon tank last a year+
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You live within minutes (but on the better side -Durham, otoh, would go full Mad Max in days) of an urban area that is woefully unprepared. I suggest you make friends with that arms dealer that lives behind you. (Only sorta joking.)
<added>
>Only sorta joking
Clarification: about the arms part. NOT joking about Durham.
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>water
SODIS works for long-term.
http://www.sodis.ch/methode/index_EN
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We are 36 miles from Durham.
Arms dealer lives across the street.
Next door is the guy flying the DON'T TREAD ON ME FLAG.
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>friends
Its too late when TSHTF. Every good southerner has at least a shotgun in the pickup truck house, plus maybe a few more for the cousins when they visit. Stock up on buck shot and beer.
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We're scaring (or should that be scarring) Gurtie and, IMHO, she's the best hope for UK survival. Sexyboy ain't got a chance.
Seriously, prepare for whatever 3-weeks-wihout-power scenario that fits your conscience. Stretching from there isn't too hard.
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>Gurtie
Stockpile Cup O Noodles!
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>Sexyboy ain't got a chance.
*cough*
Don't worry, when it hits the fan Gurtie will get the full charm offensive. I'll be living in total safety and getting breakfast in bed, bring it on.
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Unless you can dredge up the cutthroat savviness of your junkyard days, you are toast. (BTW, has the statute of limitations run out on that little incident involving a truck and a crusher? Been meaning to ask about that.)
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I am going to start raising pigs.
At least they can be good company until I need to eat them. Who says I have to buy friends? ???
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>> Noodles
I have basic food groups - about 100 bottles of wine, a fridge full of chocolate and a manual coffee grinder. And the bastard deer in the garden gets it first week - you're having venison for lunch NFFC :)
Brad - didn't know you were a prepper! Is that pretty standard in the US, it seem that a lot of you have at least some type of backup plan? I guess you are largely more rural than we are...
>> pigs
couldn't do it - we have a pig project along the lane, they're just too cute and intelligent to contemplate making into bacon!
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>junkyard days
By a very strange coincidence one of my workers from those days came to see me today, not seen him for maybe 10 years.
He told a story I had forgotten where we went out for a night, he drove his Blue van. We both got very drunk and he decided to drive back, very quickly he saw the flashing blue lights of the police in his rear view mirror.
He looked at me and said what do we do, I said hit the gas peddle I will deal with it.
Being in the scrap game we had lots of spare parts in the van, so as he was driving at 80mph through the back streets of Nottingham I was leaning out the window throwing clutch plates at the pursuing police car. They decided that their life was worth more than catching us and stopped chasing.
The next morning in a masterstroke of criminal genius we took a paintbrush and painted the van black.
I welcome the coming apocalypse, Gurtie may well have a skip in her step too at that time.
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although I think digital marketing as a career choice might not be a great option...
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>largely more rural
Largely!?!? NFFC took me to see Sherwood Oak or somesuch. NOT A SINGLE DAMN SQUIRREL did I see. Not one.
Lay off the noodles, too much salt. Bad for water consumption.
Really, a lot of this comes from hurricane preparedness. Do the 3 weeks thing.
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>prepper
I think I might flunk a prepper test, but yes I grew up out in the country and played in the hundred acre woods so something might have rubbed off.
Now I live 2 stinking miles as the crow flies from the power plant and we have more power outages than I can count. Its getting Third World with the power, of course this is Indiana.
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ah you have me looking at prepper websites now. Who knew you could peel hard boiled eggs with duct tape? Wow, I love the interweb
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Prepper sites are fun.
You can do anything with duct tape. Most of Americas infrastructure is held together with duct tape.
'Merica.
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Murica
God, I love this scene
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Y_6H617Fcs
"Broke into the wrong goddamn rec room, didn't you? You bastard!"
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>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Y_6H617Fcs
Because you just never know.
(Love that scene too.)
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>scene
Needs more duct tape. Movie struggles to make B-grade but has developed a cult following (pun, Gurtie).
Preparedness food, easy way:
http://www.mountainhouse.com/product/0080635.html
Couple of tubs and and water filtration setup and you're good to go a couple of weeks. You need to think some things through such as MANUAL CAN OPENER, hand tools, etc., but at least you've got something.
And that's the why I like that scene so much. NOT the guns ...but that their (obviously paranoid) over-the-top preparedness turned out to be worth it for them.
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lol - I wrote an article for a client about power cuts and mentioned manual can openers - they're the exact time you need to open cans! I didn't mention guns though. Perhaps I should edit...
you appear to have more colours of duct tape in the US. No fair.
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>water
This is a backup for your water filter. Water purification tablets, chlorine tabs you can put in a canteen with water of unknown quality. Sealed they have a very long shelf life. You can find at Army surplus, camping supply stores and of course Amazon. Don't shoot the drone.
Also stockpile some bottles of dry bath stuff like they use in hospitals and nursing homes so you can save the water for drinking.
>manual can opener
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Can_opener#Military_use_can_openers
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>water
There's the big problem for the cities, without water pressure every floor above ground level becomes more and more useless.
Back to Gurtie's garden, Week 4... You know how to build a rabbit (trap) box Gurtie? Do-able with simple tools and a few boards. The rabbits will be gone, but rats will be big & fat in these circumstances --and will survive us all. You can always tell the family they are squirrels. Oh wait, I forgot, no one there has ever seen a squirrel in modern times.
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Squirrels are just cute rats.
VERY destructive !!
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I've cleaned a couple of hundred of them (but never eaten one. Trust me, they are rats.). My dad PAID me to hunt game, he loved it. I was a better-than-average marksman/hunter because -well- I got paid to shoot stuff. Also, my maternal grandfather was a locally-renowned professional game guide, so serious hunting was just something I just grew up with. Also fishing. We have more water than land over here --the Netherlands is dry by comparison, seriously- and I grew up on the waterfront. When I got bored in the summertime, I fished. I also did a little trapping.
Given the context of this thread, in recent years I've given thought as to if/how those long-ago skills might be called into play.
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<added>
But I am a **LOUSY** gardener. I try to keep a few local mega-farmers on my friends list.
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<added 2>
>I wrote an article for a client about power cuts and mentioned manual can openers
How about chimneys and flue pipes, Gurtie? Over here, modern construction deletes those as costly, obsolete items and -if there is a fireplace- it's a ventless, sheetmetal box with gas logs. Not very good for keeping the place warm once the power and gas isn't available. Useless for cooking, too, working or otherwise.
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squirrels? like these? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_squirrel we have the little feckers in the garden. They're why we never get to eat any of our hazelnuts We also have copious amounts of rats (and therefore rat traps) and huge fat pigeons, so we're good for several types of rodent curry as well as bunny casserole.
And we're also good on fireplaces and wood. I think we must be closet preppers.
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>we must be closet preppers
I said you were the eutrash's only hope, didn't I?
>feckers
that's him
>pigeons
Sounds tastier if you call them domesticated doves. I'll show you how to field dress them one day. You just stick your thumbs in under the breast bone and rip out the breast. Wipe away any feathers. Works best when they're still warm.
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we have gas central heating system, to which I replied so what controls it?
Forget about the controls, it probably has a blower or a pump.
Your gas oven won't work either. It has a thermocoupling that runs on electric that's way in the back and buried in the innards. If you don't have juice, you can't heat the thermocoupling and can't get any gas to flow. Hot water heater is the same deal. No modern appliances have active pilot lights and all depend on electric for a reboot.
Out where we are, everyone owns at least one generator. The cool people (not me) own two or three. Why not just one big one? Because big ones eat fuel. You run a big one and bring your fridge temps down and your home temps up (God forbid you have electric heat). But then just to keep low draw things online (like the oven and hot water heater and maybe a few other things), you have a small generator that sips fuel. Otherwise you need a 500 gallon tank.
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Here's the news from my province this weekend:
http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/01/26/thousands-without-heat-in-frigid-manitoba-after-huge-natural-gas-pipeline-explosion/
Prepper 101 question #1: If you had to leave your home in a hurry, without knowing when you could come back, could you get suitably dressed in the dark? How quickly?
Prepper 101 question #2: If your house were likely to freeze, would you know how to drain your water pipes?
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http://www.youtube.com/user/AmishSurvivalSecrets?feature=watch
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I keep meaning to look for an old TV on Craigslist, so that I can mess around with solar cooking.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wk3dv1IXb00
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>solar cooking
You can do it with 2 cardboard boxes (nested) and a sheet of glass. I think we have the link in here somewhere, but it's on the web, search around. The designers won a prize for the cheap/stupidproof design for 3rd world cooking a few years back.
If you want to go 1st world $$, you might try nesting a black metal pot inside and igloo cooler and covering it with a piece of E glass. Should work.
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http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/blogs/23-adorable-photos-that-will-change-the-way-you-think-about-rats
:o ::) :o
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Cook your rat casserole in here:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/04/09/solar.oven.global.warming/index.html
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>curry
If I'm going to be eating Tree Rat(TM), rats and pigeons then I need to stockpile more curry powder. I do think I can eat them if made into a curry. Thanks for the tip, Gurtie.
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>> solar cooking - in the uk it might be pretty slow cooking :P
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"It would not be that hard to bring down the entire region west of the Rockies if you, in fact, had a coordinated attack like this against a number of substations," Wellinghoff said Thursday. "This [shooting] event shows there are people out there capable of such an attack."
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-grid-terror-20140207,0,5892405.story
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjhPUo0dQtw
Heat a room
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Posturing
“We are concerned that voluntary measures may not be sufficient to constitute a reasonable response to the risk of physical attack on the electricity system,”
http://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ContentRecord_id=e586f4b7-cca6-4857-bac8-5063bb04e7db
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That's why it's good to keep up with these guys :
http://spaceweather.com/
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Amazing that we can view the sun so closely while sitting on our arses, check this YT vid and view in HD :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrnGi-q6iWc
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Corbridge, England got a sign last night:
Northern Lights
http://i.imgur.com/NwbX4Oc.jpg
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<added>
Yesterday’s Mammoth Solar Flare Is The Biggest Of 2014 So Far
http://www.universetoday.com/109727/yesterdays-mammoth-solar-flare-is-the-biggest-of-2014-yet/
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Corbridge, England got a sign last night:
Northern Lights
http://i.imgur.com/NwbX4Oc.jpg
I can't believe that's our green and pleasant land, what an amazing shot !
For total eye-candy, you ahve to watch this.
I spotted four UFO's, and by that i mean unidentified flying objects, not necessarily ET.
The first one is at 1:41, top of screen just to the left of middle.
The second is a group of three, at 3:31 on the right-hand side, about middle.
Odd lights aside the footage is just spectacular :
http://vimeo.com/45878034
Gary.
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Near Miss: The Solar Superstorm of July 2012
"If it had hit, we would still be picking up the pieces," says Daniel Baker of the University of Colorado.
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2014/23jul_superstorm/
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Got those prepper supplies in your pantry yet, Gurtie?
http://news.discovery.com/space/powerful-x-class-solar-flare-hits-earth-causes-radio-blackout-141025.htm
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heh heh - almost. Now have chickens, bees and the veg patches. Two freezers and 12 bottles of sloe gin made last month. That'll get us through a small solar flare I reckon. You can live for a long time on the fat stores I have and 12 bottles of sloe gin....
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I better stock up on booze, spam and canned beans. Oh and coffee.
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>booze, spam and canned beans.
Sounds like a party.
Being in earth quake country we always have an emergency supply of food and water for several days. Seems most people forget about water, but you could go weeks without food and only a couple of days without water.
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>>water
That is a good point. Personally I could live for a long time without food. Fortunately, I usually have at least a few gallons of bottled distilled water on hand since I use it exclusively in my coffeemaker so I don't have to descale it for mineral buildup. Plus I keep a supply of water purification tablets on hand if things really get bad. Cheap backup protection those tablets, sealed up in their bottles they last forever.
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A chlorine/heavy metal filter is a good idea, too.
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water purification... I did it myself with iodine in the Himalayas once upon a time... I remember many others that tasted foul... chlorine based... are there "nice" tasting ones about now?
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I got one for my shower, since i moved out of London the water here smells literally like a swimming pool.
I found out Severn Trent use Chloramine.
I pour my drinking water from the showerhead now, no smell, good activated charcoal filter and only £6 to filter 10K gallons or 1 year, whichever comes first.
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Just to take your mind off hurricanes...
A huge solar flare temporarily knocked out GPS communications
https://www.engadget.com/2017/09/07/a-huge-solar-flare-temporarily-knocked-out-gps-communications/
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!!!
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The U.S government issued a rare public warning about hacking campaigns targeting energy and industrial firms, the latest evidence that cyber attacks present an increasing threat to the power industry and other public infrastructure.
The hacking described in the government report is unlikely to result in dramatic attacks in the near term
http://uk.reuters.com/article/us-usa-cyber-energy/u-s-warns-public-about-attacks-on-energy-industrial-firms-idUKKBN1CQ0IN
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Yep, got us here in NC.
"the flare was the brightest and biggest type of its kind--big enough actually to cause a brief radio blackout on Earth. Coastal communities along the Atlantic Ocean were among those affected."
LOOK: Solar Flare Hits Earth on the Eve of the Fourth of July Celebrations--The Largest in Four Years | Tech Times
https://www.techtimes.com/articles/262417/20210704/solar-flare-hits-earth-july-3.htm
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It was ten to hundred times more powerful than the Carrington Event.
The Sun Just Produced a Carrington Like Event, But We Got Super Lucky
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJCytV7PUzk
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Yeah, but I'm reassured by the guy in the comments who says not to panic. I mean, after all, he has 58 high-quality* Pokemon videos on his channel. He must be right.
*Full disclosure: I did not watch any and wouldn't know a high-quality from a low-quality Pokemon video.
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NASA: A Powerful Solar Eruption on Far Side of Sun Still Impacted Earth – The Sun Spot
https://blogs.nasa.gov/sunspot/2023/03/14/a-powerful-solar-eruption-on-far-side-of-sun-still-impacted-earth/
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>far side Stealth Solar storm
Western Carolinas get rare view of Northern Lights
https://www.foxcarolina.com/2023/03/24/western-carolinas-get-rare-view-northern-lights/
That's pretty far south
Asheville NC/Coordinates
35.5951° N, 82.5515° W
Gibraltar/Coordinates
36.1408° N, 5.3536° W
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"The geomagnetic storm peaked as a severe G4 on the 5-grade scale"
Strongest solar storm in nearly 6 years slams into Earth | Space
https://www.space.com/strongest-solar-storm-nearly-6-years-surprises-forecasters
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YAG4...
The Geomagnetic Storm Continues | NOAA / NWS Space Weather Prediction Center
https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/news/geomagnetic-storm-continues
G4 Conditions Are Ongoing.