I'm glad that this didn't happen in the middle of winter or it would have been MUCH worse. It was cold enough as it was, but sheesh!
SOHO and her younger sisters are doing their best to reveal the sun's secrets and provide advance warning for future solar events.
NASA made an app called 3D Sun that provides event information, solar weather, geomagnetic forecasts and aurora coverage. It uses STEREO and SDO data for data, but SOHO gets her 10 cents in too from time to time.
The current events are an M1-Class flare and another sunspot has been cutting loose more flares, but not oriented towards us. There is an hole in the corona facing us ATM, blasting us with increased solar winds.
Current solar data as of 30 Dec. 15:06 UTC:
Solar wind @ 365.7 km/s
X-Ray Solar Flares :
6 Hr max: C8
24 Hr max: M1 (the near miss)
