I hope to see auroras down this low of latitude
THAT would be awesome
Such a thing hasn't happened for your latitude for quite some time. (and almost NEVER at mine). I hope you get some Aurora action Meat!
For those freaking about possible power outages to major power carriers the chances are extremely low. There was a flare almost/just as as big in (ok, I'm brain pooting here, 2001? 2002?) that carried no outages on Earth to any well designed and maintained power grid.
For all the naysayers and "scientists" in all the journals claiming (spitballing) that we were going to go into yet another "Maunder Minimum" and another "Mini-Ice Age" and that the end of Cycle 23 would herald over 300 years of no sunspots...journals in 2007, 2008, 2009 were full of such articles, sure are eating their words with the sunspots we've had just since the first of the year. Cycle 24 is starting out quite nicely.
While there have been an extra-large amount of "quiet" sunspots and a correspondingly relatively low solar flux compared with simple sunspot COUNTS (not the sunspot number) since the first of the year, the number of solar flares fueling the flux with class C flares and better are improving.
spaceweather.com is your friend if this is your area of interest.
Good Luck!
