Toasted Dolphin

"There's been a giant magnetic explosion on the sun," Berger said. "Because it's pointed right at us, we'll at least catch some of the cloud" of highly energized and magnetized plasma that can disrupt Earth's magnetic sphere, which sometimes leads to temporary power grid problems.

Forecasters don't yet know when Wednesday's solar storm will arrive here and which part of the planet will be facing the sun and bear the brunt of the effects. It could arrive as early as Thursday morning or may take a few days.

AP link

Classification 	Peak Flux Range at 100-800 picometre
	(Watts/square metre)
A 	< 10−7
B 	10−7 - 10−6
C 	10−6 - 10−5
M 	10−5 - 10−4
X 	10−4 - 10−3
Z 	> 10−3

Within a class there is a linear scale from 1 to 9.n , so an X2 flare is twice as powerful as an X1 flare, and is four times more powerful than an M5 flare.

X class flares up to at least X28 have been recorded

An image of Earth has been inserted for scale. The largest of AR2673's dark cores are as wide as our entire planet, and they are surrounded by dozens of smaller cores as big as continents. Amateur astronomers with safely-filtered solar telescopes will have no trouble seeing this behemoth.

Overarching the complex collection of spots is a tangled magnetic canopy that harbors energy for strong solar flares. NOAA forecasters estimate a 75% chance of M-flares and a 25% chance of X-flares on Sept. 6th. Stay tuned for more explosions...

http://spaceweather.com/