A deluge of electronic frustrations over recent days; text messages not working, radio communications channels dropping out, the entire country's radar net failing, transformers failing, could all have one cause – the sun, which is acting up this week.

Energy impacting earth's magnetosphere from a series of recent solar flares has created severe G5 geomagnetic storm of an intensity seen only every twenty years or so.

Solar flares coming from the sun.

A G5 is the largest on the NASA scale.

They can cause widespread voltage control problems and protective system problems in power delivery systems. Some grid systems may experience complete collapse or blackouts. Transformers may experience damage.

They can also affect spacecraft operations, causing possible extensive surface charging, problems with orientation, uplink/downlink and tracking satellites.

There has been a series of solar flares on the side of the sun directly facing this planet, sending waves of high speed, highly charged particles – basically huge deluges of electricity - impacting planet earth's magnetic field over the last day or so, with a fourth impact expected today.

The radiation peaks from the earlier impacts is beginning to tail off and NASA forecasts have reduced the expected impact form the latest flare, which is now though to be travelling at a slower velocity than earlier predicted.

Other systems that can be affected by solar flares include, HF (high frequency) radio transmission which may be impossible in many areas for one to two days, satellite navigation may be degraded for days, low-frequency radio navigation can be out for hours.

In the US the northern aurora has been seen as far south as Florida and southern Texas.