Well, Thursday was a real mess with phones and the internet, wasn't it?
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| Phone outages across the U.S. especially with carrier AT&T, probably weren't caused by solar flares and highlight the need to have backup ways to receive needed information. |
There was all kind of speculation as to what went wrong. In the end, it was some sort of system expansion and upgrade that went awry. It wasn't a cyber attack, which is nice.
I did see speculation all day Thursday that it was a solar flare. While some scientists say it's possible, many meteorologists and others strongly doubted that this was the cause.
Those meteorologists were right.
It's true that there were two big solar flares early Thursday. I guess first we should figure out what a solar flare is. As always, NASA is most helpful.
According to NASA: "A solar flare is an intense burst of radiation coming from the release of magnetic energy associated with sunspots. Flares are our solar system's largest explosive events. They are seen as bright areas on the sun and they can last from minutes to hours."
Large solar flares can mess up electrical grids and cause other issues here on Earth, but that kind of thing is rare.
It's true that the solar flares happened at about the same time the phone outages hit. But correlation is not necessarily cause, as I'm sure you've heard before. It was probably just strange timing.
"Some solar scientists have cast doubts on claims that there is a connection between the two events. 'Flares only cause radio degradation on the 'dayside' of the Earth......the U.S. was not affected by the event, So it's just coincidence,' solar astrophysicist Ryan French at the National Solar Observatory posted on X."
The solar flare probably did cause some radio outages over the Pacific Ocean, but those problems are unrelated to U.S. phone issues.
COMMUNICATION BREAKDOWN
This all started in the early morning hours Thursday and lasted a good part of the day. a It affected a lot of people, even those who are not experiencing outages.
For instance ,I had to cancel an online session with someone Thursday afternoon. I could get to the person I was trying to reach, but she could not reach me. Luckily, this was a non-critical meeting.
I can't say that for every situation going on today. In some cities, like San Francisco, people couldn't even call 911. The San Francisco Fire Department released this alert:
"We are actively engaged and monitoring this. The San Francisco 911 center is still operational. If you are an AT&T customer and cannot get through to 911, then please try calling from a landline. If that is not an option then please try to get ahold of a friend of family member who is a customer of a different carrier and ask them to call 911 on your behalf. Do not call or text 911 to simply test your phone service."
Well, yeah, who the hell has land lines these days? Especially in techy San Francisco? By the time you get ahold of a friend to relay a message to 911, it would also probably be too late.
All this is to say and emphasize that if you ever need weather warnings, make sure you have more than one way to receive those warnings.
Luckily, there was very little in the way of severe weather anywhere in the United States Thursday. But if there was any kind of dangerous weather, chances are that app on your phone wouldn't be able to mention the tornado or flash flood headed right toward your house. At least no today, with all that service trouble.
That's why a back up, like a weather radio, or even just a local television or radio station would provide the alert instead.
If you had these at the ready, that is.
It's a reminder to all of us not to get overly dependent on one thing. Didn't your mother tell you not to put all your eggs in one basket?
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