The sun sure has woken up this week, unleashing a powerful X-class solar flare on Jan. 18 that hurled a colossal, fast-moving coronal mass ejection (CME) directly toward Earth. That CME has now arrived, triggering severe (G4) geomagnetic storm conditions far earlier than initially forecast.

"This is the largest solar radiation storm in over 20 years," the Space Weather Prediction Center said on Monday.

A solar radiation storm stronger than one we’ve seen in over two decades is in progress, the Space Weather Prediction Center announced Monday.

Scientists have pulled back the curtain on one of the most extreme solar regions seen in decades, tracking it almost nonstop for three months as it unleashed powerful space weather. By combining views from two spacecraft—one near Earth and one orbiting the Sun—researchers followed a massive active region as it grew,

Alabama’s northern counties on Wednesday remained under a winter storm watch that will go into effect on Friday. But forecast models have been trending in a more positive direction for some parts of the state (but not all) when it comes to the potential for freezing rain.

The weather service urged people to have food, medicine, and heating sources to potentially days without power.