Power companies prepare as solar storms set to hit Earth (Reuters)

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Three large explosions from the Sun over the past few days have prompted U.S. government scientists to caution users of satellite, telecommunications and electric equipment to prepare for possible disruptions over the next few days.

"The magnetic storm that is soon to develop probably will be in the moderate to strong level," said Joseph Kunches, a space weather scientist at the Space Weather Prediction Center, a division of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

He said solar storms this week could affect communications and global positioning system (GPS) satellites and might even produce an aurora visible as far south as Minnesota and Wisconsin.

An aurora, called aurora borealis or the northern lights in northern latitudes, is a natural light display in the sky in the Arctic and Antarctic regions caused by the collision of energetic charged particles with atoms in the high altitude atmosphere.

Major disruptions from solar activity are rare but have had serious impacts in the past.

In 1989, a solar storm took down the power grid in Quebec, Canada, leaving about six million people without power for several hours.

The largest solar storm ever recorded was in 1859 when communications infrastructure was limited to telegraphs.

The 1859 solar storm hit telegraph offices around the world and caused a giant aurora visible as far south as the Caribbean Islands.

Some telegraph operators reported electric shocks. Papers caught fire. And many telegraph systems continued to send and receive signals even after operators disconnected batteries, NOAA said on its website.

A storm of similar magnitude today could cause up to $2 trillion in damage globally, according to a 2008 report by the National Research Council.

"I don't think this week's solar storms will be anywhere near that. This will be a two or three out of five on the NOAA Space Weather Scale," said Kunches.

SOLAR SCALE

The NOAA Space Weather Scale measures the intensity of a solar storm from one being the lowest intensity to five being the highest, similar to scales that measure the severity of hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes.

The first of the three solar explosions from the sun this week already passed the Earth on Thursday with little impact, Kunches said, noting, the second was passing the Earth now and "seems to be stronger."

And the third, he said, "We'll have to see what happens over the next few days. It could exacerbate the disturbance in the Earth's magnetic field caused by the second (storm) or do nothing at all."

Power grid managers receive alerts from the Space Weather Prediction Center to tell them to prepare for solar events, which peak about every 12 years, Tom Bogdan, director of the center said.

He said the next peak, called a solar maximum, was expected in 2013.

"We're coming up to the next solar maximum, so we expect to see more of these storms coming from the sun over the next three to five years," Bogdan said.

(Reporting by Scott DiSavino; Editing by Alden Bentley)

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Joplin Tornado May Cost Insurance Companies $2 Billion (ContributorNetwork)

Insurance claims numbers for the Joplin tornado are starting to come in and the statistics are mind-boggling. The Missouri Department of Insurance says more than $500 million worth of insurance claims have been paid out, nearly two-thirds of it to homeowners. More than $34 million has been paid in auto insurance claims. Businesses have received nearly $160 million for their properties.

In all, nearly 15,000 claims have been filed so far with another 2,000 expected. John M. Huff, director of the Dept. of Insurance, said those numbers will climb.

"This will be the largest insurance event in Missouri history, and these numbers confirm that the insurance industry is playing a vital role in Joplin's recovery. This is half a billion dollars already reinvested into the local economy, and we expect it to be three to four times that amount by the time all claims are settled," Huff says.

That means the final cost to insurers will be between $1.5 billion to $2 billion. That figure alone doesn't take into account trash removal, FEMA money or disaster assistance from various non-profit agencies being poured into Joplin's relief efforts.

Nor does the figure take into account volunteer hours spent helping to clean up debris. The economic impact of the tornado will be staggering no matter how you crunch the numbers.

In terms of time, in about 30 minutes the massive EF5 tornado destroyed billions of dollars of construction. Houses and stores that took years to build up as Joplin expanded to the east were destroyed in minutes or even seconds because of high winds.

It's difficult for me to wrap my mind around such a thing. In a year of huge disasters like the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, it's still hard to believe that something on this earth can destroy human lives in mere seconds.

Compared to other billion-dollar disasters in U.S. history, the tornado outbreak of May 22 to May 27 was highly destructive. The tornado did more damage than Hurricane Dolly in 2008. The outbreak from May 22 to May 27 may reach $7 billion in total damage.

The National Weather Service states disaster estimates, if they hold through the rest of 2011, will make 2011 the worst year on record since the government tracked insurance losses. Data goes back to 1980 for such disasters that have cost billions of dollars.

So far in 2011, nearly $32 billion has been lost in eight separate weather-related events. Last year, only three major events saw more than a billion dollars in damage. Hurricane season hasn't even gotten to its peak yet and it's expected to be more active than normal.

The statistics show what Americans already know about 2011--it's a bad year for weather extremes.

William Browning, a lifelong Missouri resident, writes about local and state issues for the Yahoo! Contributor Network. Born in St. Louis, Browning earned his bachelor's degree in English from the University of Missouri. He currently resides in Branson.

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