Yup, I just didn't make it up--it was in the Detroit paper.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jim Gammon" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, September 11, 2014 4:08 PM
Subject: Re: Solar Storm Heading for Earth


> Steve, I looked for the article about the solar storm
> in USA Today both in today and yesterday's papers and couldn't 
> find them.  Did you get it online somewhere? Jim WA6EKS
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Steve <[log in to unmask]
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Date sent: Thu, 11 Sep 2014 14:26:20 -0400
> Subject: Solar Storm Heading for Earth
> 
> BlankSolar storm heading for Earth By Doyle Rice USA TODAY A 
> solar flare
> that launched off the sun Wednesday afternoon could wreak havoc 
> with
> communications systems and power systems on the Earth, as well as 
> with
> satellites in orbit, in coming days.  Forecasters with NOAA's 
> Space Weather
> Prediction Center said the flare already "caused impacts to 
> high-frequency
> radio communications on Earth today," according to NOAA.  "A 
> coronal mass
> ejection (CME) associated with this event is likely, but further 
> analysis is
> necessary to determine whether it will produce geomagnetic 
> storming on
> Earth.  A coronal mass ejection contains billions of tons of 
> energetic
> hydrogen and helium ions as well as protons and electrons ejected 
> from the
> sun's surface.  If a CME occurred, Earth's magnetosphere will 
> likely be
> disturbed and a geomagnetic storm could result in the next few 
> days, NOAA
> reports.  NOAA space weather forecaster Bill Murtagh said that 
> scientists
> will know more about when and where the impacts will be when more 
> data comes
> in later Wednesday and early Thursday.  The flare is on the high 
> end of the
> solar flare scale.  One nice side effect of the solar storm is an 
> expansion
> of the photogenic aurora borealis, or Northern Lights, across 
> Canada and the
> northern U.S.  The Northern Lights appear when atoms in the 
> Earth's
> high-altitude atmosphere collide with energetic charged particles 
> from the
> sun.  They usually appear as shimmering green waves of light in 
> the nighttime
> sky in polar latitudes.  Much more rarely, they can be red and 
> even blue.