Meanwhile, nationwide throughout the United States, widespread cellular outages were reported on Thursday morning following the solar flares. According to The Associated Press, tens of thousands of outages were reported by major cellular carriers such as AT&T, Verzion and T-Mobile.
It remains unclear if the two events are related, but reports of outages appeared to begin around the same time as the solar flares.
Rapid Fire X-class flares from Region 3590! An X1.9 followed by an X1.7, both causing short-lived R3-level #RadioBlackouts. Ongoing radio & #GPS/#GNSS disruptions over Australia, Indonesia, India, and East Africa now (see colored regions in map). Aviators check ICAO advisories! pic.twitter.com/b3EEcvH5TaFebruary 22, 2024
However, 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. As you can see below, the U.S was not affected by the event. So it's just a coincidence!," solar astrophysicist Ryan French at the National Solar Observatory posted on X.
Some people are attributing cell network outages (AT&T, Verizon) in the U.S to last night’s X-class #SolarFlare. However, flares only cause radio degradation on the *dayside* of the Earth. As you can see below, the U.S was not affected by the event. So it’s just a coincidence!
https://t.co/8EQxLV2qVJ pic.twitter.com/A5kImCmStCFebruary 22, 2024