Some of these effects may shock or surprise you, but here are a list of some of the many ways solar weather can affect you:

• — If you are susceptible to heart attacks or strokes, be prepared — the risk of hospitalization more than triples when solar weather begins to get rough.  (Data has shown hospitalization for heart attacks increase 210%!)
• — Damage to your personal household appliances and electronics, especially computers and other expensive equipment that are sensitive to power surges and brown outs.

• — Loss of electricity, ranging into months or even years at a time in hard hit areas where the electrical grids can experience such severe damage to expensive systems and equipment that major components have to be replaced entirely.
• — As with many other natural disasters, supplies of food and water in your area, or even your personal stash, may dwindle if supplies can not be replenished due to power outages.
• — ATMs, banks and stores will no longer function without power. They will also likely be cleared out with only empty shelves or locked doors to greet you.

• — Your fuel supply will be stopped. Not only will there be dramatic runs on gas as the storms get bad, but as power is lost the means to even pump fuel will stop.
• — Serious health risks like heatstroke and hypothermia can become radically pronounced without electricity as the lack heat and air conditioning take effect. During a serious solar storm in 1989 this became a very real threat for the eastern half of the United States and Canada when the power was taken out for hours on a icy late winter night.
• — Looting and other crimes will become major issues, especially if you live in higher population areas where supplies run out more quickly. Imagine: Even homes will be targeted in desperation.
• — You will have no public transportation.
• — You may have to go without important medications.
• — Water treatment facilities will lose the ability to pump and provide anyone with fresh water.
• — Your cell phone may not even have signal for long even if you can figure out a way to charge it as cell towers use up their 12 hour batteries or week long generator fuel stores.

• — You and your loved ones may be separated, and with no reliable means to communicate, children can be lost, family members can be sick or injured with out help, etc.
• — As nuclear facilities require water pumps and electricity to keep their reactions under control, this will cause them to lose their ability to remain cool and meltdowns will be unavoidable. Fukushima all over again en masse!

Grim as these may be, by envisioning these scenarios you can now imagine more clearly how solar weather can truly affect your life.

Seriously considerer this: You can find yourself in all of these nightmares with a simple eruption from ONE solar storm!

This is where FlareAware can help you prepare for solar weather. Not by (something something something that sounds ridiculous) but by providing you with the one thing there is never enough of before a disaster hits: TIME!

FlareAware can give you hours to days warning before a severe solar storms hits and this time is invaluable when faced with the real threat of public panic. Everyones heard old winter storm stories of incoming blizzards and shelves being cleared within hours of weather stations announcing even a minor foot or two of snow. Imagine your town or city being told that in a few short hours the power hungry populace was going to be left in the dark, possibly for weeks or months...

Even imagine a scenario where the news stations say absolutely nothing. Too afraid to cause fear, panic, riots, and looting. Who would know until it was too late?

To put it most simply the Sun goes through an 11 year cycle that ranges from a period of no/low activity, or no sunspots, to a period of high activity, or lots of sunspots, and back to a quiet period of no spots again.

This period of high activity is called Solar Maximum and is a several year period when we can expect to see the most effects of solar weather on our planet.

To know the bare minimum there are four kinds of solar weather you should be aware of:

Solar Flares: As giant magnetic explosions of light and X-ray radiation these solar events only take eight minutes to reach Earth but cause little damage to Earthly equipment or humans with the exceptions of satellites or astronaut in orbit. Although these Flares have little effect on day to day life, aside from radio propagation and satellite disruption, they can be good indicators if a coronal mass ejections is heading our way and give us an Idea of how big they may be.

Coronal mass ejections or CMEs: These are likely the most important space weather events to be aware of. Essentially, a coronal mass ejection is a superheated plume of magnetically charged plasma that lifts off the sun’s surface and expands out into the solar system. Sometimes these clouds of plasma hit Earth’s magnetosphere and, through the force of the shockwave and magnetic charge, induce a geomagnetic storm.

Coronal Holes: Solar wind plays a large part in space weather around our planet as they can slow and speed up CMEs increasing or decreasing their impact on our planet. Coronal holes are large patches of the Sun’s surface where heat, energy and particles escape more easily from the sun and speed away into space that sweep over our planet as the sun rotates. A coronal hole acts as a jet stream where these solar winds pick up speed and buffet our magnetosphere, sometimes causing geomagnetic storms, or just raise the level of activity enough to cause an increase in heart attack and stroke risk.

Geomagnetic Storms: The most famous effect of these events may be the aurora borealis or northern lights however, GICs or geomagnetic induced currents that can damage the electrical grid, are also well known and much feared effects of this kind of event. To add to this an actual “storm” level of disturbance does not even have to be reached for you to expect a 210% increased risk of heart attack and stroke.

Surprisingly disturbance levels just below the minimum threshold for the lowest level of geomagnetic storming will still cause micro fluctuations in the Earth’s magnetic field and adversely affect our cardiovascular systems.

We're about reach the solar max of the 24th 11-year solar cycle, when solar events are at their maximum.

Lately, solar storms have just missed the Earth, but if they hit, it could have destructive consequences. Fortunately, there's a way to prepare yourself for such an event: FlareAware.

Possibly The Fastest CME ever observed by NASA Spacecraft in July of This Year

In July 2012 the fastest CME ever observed since the STEREO launch in 2006 blew passed NASA's spacecraft, which measures solar weather activity.

When compared to the biggest solar event on record, the 110 nanoTesla Carrington event, this CME was 73% it’s strength. To understand the magnitude of what so nearly hit us you must understand the colossal impact a storm with a strength anywhere near the power of the legendary Carrington event could have on our society today.

The Carrington Event in Short

In 1859 a CME lit the sky all over the world causing the northern lights to be visible even in the Caribbean. Telegraph systems, high tech in those days, failed all over the planet and the operators were electrically shocked by the power being pumped into them by the storm. In some places the equipment caught fire while others were sending and receiving messages even after the batteries were removed.

Though this was an amazing event it's important to know that events with this potential are happening today—the most recent being July 2012—and can have major effects on all of us. It's not going to be 100 years away that something happens to us. It is now that solar events are happening, and the next big one that could hit us could be just around the corner.

According to The Department of Homeland Security here are some risk assessments, what kind of damage we have to look forward to and how they are planning to prepare for such an event:

While solar flares are likely to interrupt radio signals, the real threat comes from Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs). With FlareAware, you'll be alerted one to two days before a CME is expected to hit. This will give you time to fill up your gas tank, fill prescriptions, and unplug important electronics. You can do all this before everyone else even gets the news that a CME is coming.