Tuesday's CME Solar Explosion Caused power outage in MN? 11,000 people without power... What other

Equipment Failure Leaves 11-Thousand People In The Dark

Xcel Energy says an equipment failure left some 11-thousand people in the dark Tuesday morning in St. Paul.

The power company says the equipment outside of St. Joseph hospital failed sending thick black smoke and some flames into the air. The fire was small and was quickly extinguished.

The failure happened at 11:00 A.M. and crews were able to restore power by noon.

The outage impacted the hospital and the State Capital, but there were no reports of any problems due to the power failure.

Xcel says they are not sure what caused the outage.

SOURCE: KSTP News Minneapolis MN

Aside from this, we are supposed to see great Northern Lights dipping down into MN tonight.

Have there been any other bizarre inferstructure events today that could have been the result of this CME that is hitting the earth today?

The CME occurred on Sunday morning.

The low level geomagnetic storm which is now occurring did not start until 3:00PM Minnesota time. The power outage was not caused by solar activity.


[edit on 8/3/2010 by Phage]

Ya, I agree Phage,. Had this been a CME large enough to take out this unit it would have done more damage elsewhere.
I checked with some of the other locals in the regional tri state area. and nothing else.

reply to post by YourPopRock


Some particles could be "front running" the actual CME. It's possible.

By this time tomorrow we will know the effect of the main discharge.

Considering it was a 2 part blast, it is actually feasible that front running particles could indeed hit earth prior to other substantial portions of the wave.

It is like throwing a handful of sand at a person's face... not every particle of sand hits at exactly the same time.

Did anyone hear of any other interesting effects of the storm?

(and I know it happened sunday, but it wasn't an earth event till tuesday).

reply to post by YourPopRock

No. It's pretty clear when the products of the CME arrived.
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/9c090aa6c1eb.gif[/atsimg]
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/6730bcfb7e4a.gif[/atsimg]

With the time zone the charts are set at, that would put it at approximately 11am central time for the start.

That is also according to the time you pulled the charts.

I think I am reading those correctly...

Yayyyy!!! Duplicate post....

Yayyyyyy!!!!!!!

[edit on 8/4/2010 by YourPopRock]

reply to post by YourPopRock

The ACE satellite recorded the arrival of the CME at 16:56 UTC (almost hour after the power outage) at a speed of 475km/s. The satellite is 1.5 million kilometers from the Earth (in the direction of the Sun). At that speed it would take about 45 minutes for the CME to reach Earth, more than an hour and a half after the power outage.

Interestingly, the GOES satellites started showing a sudden increase in geomagnetic activity at 17:41, right on schedule (and 1:41 after the power outage).

The Kp index reached 5 at 20:42 UTC. That's 3:42PM CDT (almost 5 hours after the power outage). The Kp index is a measure of geomagnetic activity, the thing that causes problems with power grids. A Kp index of 5 is classified as a minor storm.

Power systems: weak power grid fluctuations can occur.
Spacecraft operations: minor impact on satellite operations possible.
Other systems: migratory animals are affected at this and higher levels; aurora is commonly visible at high latitudes (northern Michigan and Maine)**.

www.swpc.noaa.gov...



The power outage was not caused by the CME. It was caused by an exploding transformer. It happens.

A one-year research project led to the discovery of 730 transformer explosions in the USA only.

www.transproco.com...

Darn you and your logic based on facts! lol

I guess I just have to chalk that one up to coincidence...

Still pretty interesting timing.