Space weather is a threat that people really don't give a lot of thought about, but a very severe solar storm could be incredibly disruptive to society, requiring extreme measures like temporarily shutting down the nation's power plants, taking all vehicles off the road, and the loss of all radio and other communications.

The good news is they have pretty good monitoring of solar weather and we'd have several hours to days to prepare, the bad news is that it could send lightening bolts out of power lines across the world, fry billions of dollars of equipment -- especially large power transformers not physically disconnected from the power grid.

I am not sure how bad it would be for smaller, unplugged electronic devices, as their coils probably wouldn't induce much current as they are relatively small, but it's bad news for utilities.

Of course, that's only in cases of very severe solar weather like last happened in 1859. But it could really mess up 2024 for a lot of people, if the world gets hit hard by a Carrington Event.