What effect does a Solar Storm have on us?
First, there is no such thing as “as solar storm that is supposed to hit us in 2013”. At present, the best we can do is one week in advance. There are solar storms all the time on the Sun. NONE of them can reach us. Ever. What they can do is trigger a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) and these happen all the time. Since they can be ejected in any direction, most of them miss us. Some do “hit” us (many per year) and one did about a month ago. Most of the time, they cause very beautiful Northern Lights (and southern lights if you live south of the equator). Sometimes (very rarely), they can cause Earth’s field to have what we call a Magnetic Reconnection Event, resulting in a geomagnetic storm. Rapid fluctuations of our magnetic field can induce currents in very long conductors. The last time this happened, computers that control the power distribution in the province of Quebec (in Canada) misinterpreted it as a major problem and they shut down the grid. Six million people went without power
