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.