Did you feel the effects this morning of the solar storm that shook our magnetic fields "like a snow globe"?
After hurtling through space for a day and a half, a massive cloud of charged particles is due to arrive early Thursday and could disrupt utility grids, airline flights, satellite networks and GPS services, especially in northern areas. But the same blast could also paint colorful auroras farther from the poles than normal.
I wasn't using my cell phone or computer or a GPS system, but I had awoken earlier than usual and had the TV on. Because of distruptions in the satellite feeds, I couldn't understand the news on any of the cable channels; the audio was nothing but static, and the pictures jerked in and out with flashes of light. Spooky.
I read the novel "One Second After" a couple of years ago, which chronicled America's quick descent into the Dark Ages after an attack by an Electromagnetic Pulse weapon took out all our technology. It was a frightening book, but, I thought, a tad on the hysterical side. But others think we do need to do a lot better job at creating a "smart grid" to protect ourselves. Today's little interruptions are a reminder of how dependent we've become on our technology.
