The solar flare occurred at about 11 p.m. EST Sunday and will hit Earth with three different effects at three different times. The biggest issue is radiation, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center in Colorado.

The radiation is mostly a concern for satellite disruptions and astronauts in space. It can cause communication problems for polar-traveling airplanes, said space weather center physicist Doug Biesecker.

Radiation from Sunday’s flare arrived at Earth an hour later and will likely continue through Wednesday. Levels are considered strong but other storms have been more severe. There are two higher levels of radiation on NOAA’s storm scale — severe and extreme — Biesecker said. Still, this storm is the strongest for radiation since May 2005.

The radiation — in the form of protons — came flying out of the sun at 93 million miles per hour.

“The whole volume of space between here and Jupiter is just filled with protons and you just don’t get rid of them like that,” Biesecker said. That’s why the effects will stick around for a couple days.

NASA’s flight surgeons and solar experts examined the solar flare’s expected effects and decided that the six astronauts on the International Space Station do not have to do anything to protect themselves from the radiation, spokesman Rob Navias said.

A solar eruption is followed by a one-two-three punch, said Antti Pulkkinen, a physicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland and Catholic University.

First comes electromagnetic radiation, followed by radiation in the form of protons.

Then, finally the coronal mass ejection — that’s the plasma from the sun itself — hits. Usually that travels at about 1 or 2 million miles per hour, but this storm is particularly speedy and is shooting out at 4 million miles per hour, Biesecker said.

It’s the plasma that causes much of the noticeable problems on Earth, such as electrical grid outages. In 1989, a solar storm caused a massive blackout in Quebec. It can also pull the northern lights further south.

But this coronal mass ejection seems likely to be only moderate, with a chance for becoming strong, Biesecker said. The worst of the storm is likely to go north of Earth.

And unlike last October, when a freak solar storm caused auroras to be seen as far south as Alabama, the northern lights aren’t likely to dip too far south this time, Biesecker said. Parts of New England, upstate New York, northern Michigan, Montana and the Pacific Northwest could see an aurora but not until Tuesday evening, he said.

For the past several years the sun had been quiet, almost too quiet. Part of that was the normal calm part of the sun’s 11-year cycle of activity. Last year, scientists started to speculate that the sun was going into an unusually quiet cycle that seems to happen maybe once a century or so.

Now that super-quiet cycle doesn’t seem as likely, Biesecker said.

Scientists watching the sun with a new NASA satellite launched in 2010 — during the sun’s quiet period — are excited.

“We haven’t had anything like this for a number of years,” Pulkkinen said. “It’s kind of special.”

___

NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory: http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/

From Washington AP

Look to us for information on events like this and other emergency situations www.lmddisastersurvivalkits.com

So this is how the events unfolded for my family. Myself and my wife are from Montana so snow and cold weather is nothing new us.

Snow started about midnight Tuesday 1/ 17/2012 it put down in my neighborhood about 5″. We enjoyed the snow with our children enjoying snow ball fights, snow man building and fort building.

On Thursday morning we heard noises outside and after taking a closer look we were in an ice storm with branches coming down in our yard, driveway and on our streets. So far all our homes seem to be safe. All day Thursday myself and my neighbors take a stace to protect and look after the safety of our families and our nighbors families as we watch the massive branches come down from these 100 plus year old trees.

Power goes out twice in my neighborhood once for 1/4 of a day and the second for 24 hours. From speaking with some of my clients today on Saturday they have been out from Wednesday morning until now as I write this on Saturday.

I cleared trees away from my driveway and prepared my family for some sort of normancy for the first time on Friday. As I write this about 100 yards from my house the city has set up flashing becons to do not travel up our road.

I only had to use a radio for information, emergency lighting for this situation but who knows out of my supplies what I will need next.

I want to share that you need to be ready for winter storms or any emergency situation no matter where you live and I hope you are becoming prepared and use my website as as tool www.LmdDisasterSurvivalKits.com

Until next time be safe and prepare

As a recent report by the National Climatic Data Center highlights, 2011 has seen more billion-dollar natural disasters than any year on record. This year alone, the U.S. experienced its first hurricane landfall since 2008, the most deadly series of tornadoes since the 1950s, significant earthquakes and severe flooding – hazards that impacted every region of the country. All of these events have served as important reminders that disasters can strike anytime, anywhere, and being prepared is one of the most effective things we can do to protect our homes, businesses and loved ones.

Today, FEMA kicked off its annual campaign, Resolve to be Ready in 2012, which urges Americans to make preparedness a priority during the holiday season by making a new year’s resolution to be ready for disasters or by thinking about preparedness tools for last minute gift ideas.

“One of the most important lessons we can take away from this year is that disasters can impact all of us, no matter what part of the country we live in,” said FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate. “While we can’t control where or when they might hit, we can take steps in advance to prepare for them – efforts that can go a long way toward protecting our families, homes and business. Resolving to be Ready in 2012 could be the most important pledge you make this year.”

By making a resolution to take a few simple steps in advance, Americans can minimize the impact of an emergency on their families, homes or businesses. To take the pledge, visit www.ready.gov/resolve or www.listo.gov, which includes free information, checklists, and guidelines about how to put together a kit, make a plan, and stay informed.

Resolve to be Ready in 2012 is a nationwide effort to increase awareness and encourage individuals, families, businesses, and communities to take action and prepare for emergencies in the New Year. This effort is led by FEMA’s Ready Campaign in partnership with Citizen Corps and The Advertising Council. For more information, visit Ready.gov and CitizenCorps.gov or follow the campaign on Twitter using the hashtags #ready2012 and #resolve.

FEMA’s mission is to support our citizens and first responders to ensure that as a nation we work together to build, sustain, and improve our capability to prepare for, protect against, respond to, recover from, and mitigate all hazards.

Please look to us to prepare with your survival kits at www.LmdDisasterSurvivalKits.com

A Lahar is a type of mudflow or debris flow composed of pyroclastic material, rocky debris, and water. The material flows down from a volcano, typically along a river valley.

Lahar is an Indonesian word that describes volcanic mudflows or debris flows. Lahars have the consistency, viscosity and approximately the same density of concrete. A Lahar can travel up to 60 mph and can cause catastrophic destruction in their path with a wall of mud over 500 feet deep.

Lahar sirens are set up to alert residence of a Lahar and when you here this alarm you need to evacuate to higher ground. My community and surrounding communities have monthly Lahar warning sirens to check that is they are working properly and that is always a reminder of the potencial of a Lahar in our future.

It is advised that a survival kit be in place to take with you when you evacuate. I have mentioned many times that we do not know where we will be when a disaster occurs so having a survival kit in your home, work, school and vehicle is paramount.

If you need further information on preparing for a Lahar or purchasing a survival kit please visit us at www.LmdDisasterSurvivalKits.com

Until next time take care and prepare today for what emergency you may face before it is too late.

This Package is designed to fill all of the preparedness needs of 4 individuals by providing emergency supplies for the home, car, and one other location.

Visit us at www.LmdDisasterSurvivalKits.com

This Package contains the following items

1 – 4 Person Guardian Bucket Survival Kit

Food and Water: 4 Boxes of Aqua Literz 4 – 2400 Calorie Food Bars (9,600 Calories) 40 Water Purification Tablets – each tablet purifies 1 liter of water

Light and Communication: Dynamo Radio Flashlight 4 in 1 30 Hour Emergency Candle 4 – 12 Hour Green Emergency Glow Sticks 5-in-1 Survival Whistle Box of Waterproof Matches

Shelter and Warmth: 4 Emergency Survival Blankets 2 Person Tube Tent with Rope 4 Emergency Ponchos with Hood

Tools: 6´ x 8´ Blue Tarp 7-1/2″ Flat Pry Bar 16 Function Knife Leather Palm Work Gloves Duct Tape – 2″ x 10 yards 4 – N95 Respirator Dust Masks – NIOSH approved Safety Goggles Sewing Kit

Hygiene and Sanitation: Toilet Bags with Chemicals 4 Hygiene Kits 4 Pocket Tissue Packs Air Freshener

First Aid: Guardian 57 Piece Deluxe First Aid Kit

Other: Deck of playing cards for entertainment

2 – Auto Guardian Kits

Light and Communications: Rechargeable Squeeze Flashlight

Shelter and Warmth: Rechargeable Squeeze Flashlight Emergency Survival Blanket Full Body Warmer

Tools: Tow Rope – 10 ft. Car Battery Jumper Cables Reflective Triangle Tire Puncture Seal Oil Funnel

First Aid: 37 Piece Pocket First Aid Kit

1 – Guardian Survival Mini

Food and Water: Water Pouch 400 Calorie Cherry Food Bar

Light and Communications: 12 Hour Emergency Glow Stick 5 -in-1 Survival Whistle Waterproof Matches Rechargeable Squeeze Flashlight

Shelter and Warmth: Emergency Poncho w/ Hood Emergency Survival Blanket Full Body Warmer

Tools: Multi Function Swiss Army Style Knife Sewing Kit

By purchasing these items as a package you save 21%
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This Package contains the following items

1 – 2 Person Guardian Deluxe Survival Kit

Food and Water: 12 Boxes of Aqua Blox Water Boxes 12 – 400 Calorie Food Bars (4800 Calories) 20 Water Purification Tablets – each tablet purifies 1 liter of water

Light and Communications: Am/Fm Radio with Batteries and Headphones Rechargeable Squeeze Flashlight – 3 LED flashlight 30 Hour Emergency Candle 5-in-1 Survival Whistle Box of Waterproof Matches

Shelter and Warmth: 2 Emergency Survival Sleeping Bags 2 Emergency Ponchos

Tools: 16 Function Knife 2 N95 Respirator Dust Masks – NIOSH approved Safety Goggles Sewing Kit

Hygiene and Sanitation: 2 – 24 Piece Deluxe Hygiene Kits 6 Pocket Tissue Packs Safety Goggles Sewing Kit

First Aid: 37 Piece Portable First Aid Kit

Other: Notepad Pencil Deck of playing cards for entertainment Infectious Waste Bag

2 – Auto Guardian Kit

Light and Communications: Rechargeable Squeeze Flashlight

Shelter and Warmth: Rechargeable Squeeze Flashlight Emergency Survival Blanket Full Body Warmer

Tools: Tow Rope – 10 ft. Car Battery Jumper Cables Reflective Triangle Tire Puncture Seal Oil Funnel

First Aid: 37 Piece Pocket First Aid Kit

1 – Guardian Survival Mini

Food and Water: Water Pouch 400 Calorie Cherry Food Bar

Light and Communications: 12 Hour Emergency Glow Stick 5 -in-1 Survival Whistle Waterproof Matches Rechargeable Squeeze Flashlight

Shelter and Warmth: Emergency Poncho w/ Hood Emergency Survival Blanket Full Body Warmer

Tools: Multi Function Swiss Army Style Knife Sewing Kit

By purchasing these items as a package you will save 18%.

WASHINGTON, Aug. 31, 2011 – Recent weather events such as Hurricane Irene, the earthquake on the East Coast and other natural disasters highlight the need for Americans to prepare for emergencies. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the American Red Cross, the Ad Council and Google Crisis Response are collaborating to launch a new preparedness web resource, Get Tech Ready, on behalf of the Ready campaign.

Released just before the start of National Preparedness Month, this new resource educates individuals and families about how using modern-day technology can help them prepare, adapt and recover from disruptions brought on by emergencies or disasters.

A recent American Red Cross survey showed that the internet, including online news sites and social media platforms, is the third most popular way for Americans to gather emergency information and let their loved ones know they are safe.  

“As technology becomes more a part of our daily lives, people are turning to it during emergencies as well. We need to utilize these tools, to the best of our abilities, to engage and inform the public, because no matter how much federal, state and local officials do, we will only be successful if the public is brought in as part of the team,” FEMA Administrator, W. Craig Fugate.

“During Hurricane Irene, we saw people using new technologies in many ways, whether it was thousands of people downloading our new shelter finder App or others using our Safe and Well site and social media to let their friends and family know they are OK, ” said Gail McGovern, President and CEO of the American Red Cross. “People now have more varied resources available at their fingertips that they can use before, during and after emergencies.”

Get Tech Ready provides Americans with tips on how to use technological resources before, during and after a crisis to communicate with loved ones and manage your financial affairs. Preparedness tips on the website include:

• Learn how to send updates via text and internet from your mobile phone to your contacts and social channels in case voice communications are not available;  
• Store your important documents such as personal and financial records in the cloud or on a secure and remote area or flash or jump drive that you can keep readily available so they can be accessed from anywhere; and
• Create an Emergency Information Document using the Ready.gov Family Emergency Plan template in Google Docs or by downloading the Ready Family Emergency Plan to record your emergency plans.  

“Get Tech Ready is a resource that will truly help people in the US and around the world understand how they can use widely available technology to prepare for potential crises,” said Nigel Snoud, Product Manager, Google Crisis Response.  ”We’re thrilled to be working with FEMA, the American Red Cross, and the Ad Council on this public service project.”

“We are delighted to collaborate with FEMA, Google and the American Red Cross to expand our Ready messages through this new web site to educate more Americans about the vital need to get prepared in advance of an potential emergency,” said Peggy Conlon, president & CEO of the Ad Council. “The web site will provide access to critical resources to Americans addressing the importance of using technology as part of their individual and family preparedness plans.”

Launched in 2003, National Preparedness Month is designed to encourage Americans to take steps to prepare for emergencies throughout the year. The Ready campaign was also launched in 2003 by FEMA in partnership with the Ad Council. Since its launch, media outlets have donated more than $900 million in advertising time and space for the PSAs. The new PSAs will air in advertising time that will be entirely donated by the media.

FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY

FEMA’s mission is to support our citizens and first responders to ensure that as a nation we work together to build, sustain, and improve our capability to prepare for, protect against, respond to, recover from, and mitigate all hazards.

AMERICAN RED CROSS

The American Red Cross shelters, feeds and provides emotional support to victims of disasters; supplies nearly half of the nation’s blood; teaches lifesaving skills; provides international humanitarian aid; and supports military members and their families. The Red Cross is a charitable organization — not a government agency — and depends on volunteers and the generosity of the American public to perform its mission. For more information, please visit http://www.redcross.org/ or join our blog at http://blog.redcross.org.

The Advertising Council

The Ad Council (www.adcouncil.org) is a private, non-profit organization that marshals talent from the advertising and communications industries, the facilities of the media, and the resources of the business and non-profit communities to produce, distribute and promote public service campaigns on behalf of non-profit organizations and government agencies. The Ad Council addresses issue areas such as improving the quality of life for children, preventive health, education, community well-being, environmental preservation and strengthening families.

From Ready Campaign

Unprecedented triple-digit heat and devastating drought. Deadly tornadoes leveling towns. Massive rivers overflowing. A billion-dollar blizzard. And now, unusual hurricane-caused flooding in Vermont.

If what’s falling from the sky isn’t enough, the ground shook in places that normally seem stable: Colorado and the entire East Coast. On Friday, a strong quake triggered brief tsunami warnings in Alaska. Arizona and New Mexico have broken records for wildfires.

Total weather losses top $35 billion, and that’s not counting Hurricane Irene, according to the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration. There have been more than 700 U.S. disaster and weather deaths, most from the tornado outbreaks this spring.

Last year, the world seemed to go wild with natural disasters in the deadliest year in a generation. But 2010 was bad globally, and the United States mostly was spared.

This year, while there have been devastating events elsewhere, such as the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, Australia’s flooding and a drought in Africa, it’s our turn to get smacked. Repeatedly.

“I’m hoping for a break. I’m tired of working this hard. This is ridiculous,” said Jeff Masters, a meteorologist who runs Weather Underground, a meteorology service that tracks strange and extreme weather. “I’m not used to seeing all these extremes all at once in one year.”

The U.S. has had a record 10 weather catastrophes costing more than a billion dollars: five separate tornado outbreaks, two different major river floods in the Upper Midwest and the Mississippi River, drought in the Southwest and a blizzard that crippled the Midwest and Northeast, and Irene.

What’s happening, say experts, is mostly random chance or bad luck. But there is something more to it, many of them say. Man-made global warming is increasing the odds of getting a bad roll of the dice.

Sometimes the luck seemed downright freakish.

The East Coast got a double-whammy in one week with a magnitude 5.8 earthquake followed by a drenching from Irene. If one place felt more besieged than others, it was tiny Mineral, Va., the epicenter of the quake, where Louisa County Fire Lt. Floyd Richard stared at the darkening sky before Irene and said, “What did WE do to Mother Nature to come through here like this.”

There are still four months to go, including September, the busiest month of the hurricane season. The Gulf Coast expected a soaking this weekend from Tropical Storm Lee and forecasters were watching Hurricane Katia slogging west in the Atlantic.

The insurance company Munich Re calculated that in the first six months of the year there have been 98 natural disasters in the United States, about double the average of the 1990s.

Even before Irene, the Federal Emergency Management Agency was on pace to obliterate the record for declared disasters issued by state, reflecting both the geographic breadth and frequency of America’s problem-plagued year.

“If you weren’t in a drought, you were drowning is what it came down to,” Masters said.

Add to that, oppressive and unrelenting heat. Tens of thousands of daily weather records have been broken or tied and nearly 1,000 all-time records set, with most of them heat or rain related:

— Oklahoma set a record for hottest month ever in any state with July.

— Fairbanks, Alaska, hit 97 degrees on July 11, a record.

— Houston had a record string of 24 days in August with the thermometer over 100 degrees.

— Newark, N.J., set a record with 108 degrees, topping the old mark by 3 degrees.

Tornadoes this year hit medium-sized cities such as Joplin, Mo., and Tuscaloosa, Ala. The outbreaks affected 21 states, including unusual deadly twisters in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Massachusetts.

“I think this year has really been extraordinary in terms of natural catastrophes,” said Andreas Schrast, head of catastrophic perils for Swiss Re, another big insurer.

One of the most noticeable and troubling weather extremes was the record-high nighttime temperatures, said Tom Karl, director of NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center. That shows that the country wasn’t cooling off at all at night, which both the human body and crops need.

“These events are abnormal,” Karl said. “But it’s part of an ongoing trend we’ve seen since 1980.”

Individual weather disasters so far can’t be directly attributed to global warming, but it is a factor in the magnitude and the string of many of the extremes, Karl and other climate scientists say.

While the hurricanes and tornado outbreaks don’t seem to have any clear climate change connection, the heat wave and drought do, said NASA climate scientist Gavin Schmidt.

This year, there’s been a Pacific Ocean climate phenomenon that changes weather patterns worldwide known as La Nina, the flip side to El Nino. La Ninas normally trigger certain extremes such as flooding in Australia and drought in Texas. But global warming has taken those events and amplified them from bad to record levels, said climate scientist Jerry Meehl at the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

Judith Curry of Georgia Tech disagreed, saying that while humans are changing the climate, these extremes have happened before, pointing to the 1950s.

“Sometimes it seems as if we have weather amnesia,” she said.

Another factor is that people are building bigger homes and living in more vulnerable places such as coastal regions, said Swiss Re’s Schrast. Worldwide insured losses from disasters in the first three months this year are more than any entire year on record except for 2005, when Hurricane Katrina struck, Schrast said.

Unlike last year, when many of the disasters were in poor countries such as Haiti and Pakistan, this year’s catastrophes have struck richer areas, including Australia, Japan and the United States.

The problem is so big that insurers, emergency managers, public officials and academics from around the world are gathering Wednesday in Washington for a special three-day National Academy of Sciences summit to figure out how to better understand and manage extreme events.

The idea is that these events keep happening, and with global warming they should occur more often, so society has to learn to adapt, said former astronaut Kathryn Sullivan, NOAA’s deputy chief.

Sullivan, a scientist, said launching into space gave her a unique perspective on Earth’s “extraordinary scale and power and both extraordinary elegance and finesse.”

“We are part of it. We do affect it,” Sullivan said. “But it surely affects us on a daily basis — sometimes with very powerful punches.”

___

Researcher Julie Reed Bell contributed to this report.

___

Online:

U.S. weather records: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/extremes/records

NOAA’s tornado list: http://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/torn/fataltorn.html

NOAA’s weekly hazards map: http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/threats

Munich Re’s January-June U.S. disasters report: http://bit.ly/q6xfXJ

..By Seth Borenstein AP Science Writer