Earthquake prediction, CMEs, aurora, the Solstice: cascade catastrophe risks if GPS, gas, water, electricity grids fail

What a wonderful world we live in: CMEs form phenomenal events and create amazing effects on the Earth, such as auroras. The data also shows earthquakes may follow CMEs.
Explanations and speculation: See the videos here.

We call surges in the Earth's magnetosphere, space weather.
Most space weather reports measure the Sun, Sunspots and exploding Sunspots called Coronal Mass Ejections - CMEs.
They can travel at about one million miles per hour.
CMEs appear before some big earthquakes: CMEs are plasma - big clouds of charged particles. Plasma comes from 'boiling" on the Sun. Solar flares or coronal mass ejections.
These balloons - a CME loop - of solar wind, rise above the solar corona, like huge bubbles, expanding as they climb.
They appear in 11 - year cycles, from the surface of the Sun.
If CMEs - Sun-bubbles burst , they explode into:

1. a surge of super-hot solar plasma - at tens of millions of degrees:
2. as a soup of high-pressure electrons, protons, and heavy nuclei;
3. the burst moves in a spiral, at the speed of light;
4. the plasma-burst travels along the solar wind and magnetic lines of force;
5. creates auroras in Earth's polar regions;
6. large earthquakes may also then follow; (but more factors apply, like the angle of the Earth the time).

A big bang: As the energy of these events can get as big as one billiion nuclear bombs, and produces pressure and magnetic changes on the Earth, connection with earthquakes, volcanoes and Earth-weather seems worth consideration.
CMEs create auroras: Very big CMEs create very big auroras over a large area. After a big CEM, auroras expand from the poles, towards the equator:
For example December 14, 1862 - The Civil War Aurora: This aurora was seen by Civil War soldiers in Fredericksberg Virginia. According to a letter by Milo Grow "There was a brilliant exhibition of Aurora Borealis soon after dark last night. For half an hour it shows very brilliantly reaching to the mid heavens in colors of yellow and red".

Two big CMEs happened in January 2012: Sunspots "burst" and the energy whirled into space. CME spiral around the Sun and sometimes hit the earth. These last two did not make full contact with the earth. But a large earthquake did occur; Magnitude 6.3 near the coast of North Peru. January 30, 2012.
CME earthquakes appear to happen 2-4 days after the CME: This depends on the speed of the Solar wind, the angle of the Earth and the direction of the flare.
When to watch for spaceweather: The 11 - year cycle of the Sun created space weather action peaks; for example 1990-1991, and 2000-2001, and, now, 2011, 2012, 2013. We are in the middle of one Sunspot peak period, now.

The magnetic field changes faster ahead of the solar wind.
Wobbles ripple the magnetic field; called a “shock” . The shock can travel 1000 km/second (2 million mph) head of the CME loop. The energy of such shocks form the biggest "explosions" in the solar system, The power of one billiion hydrogen bombs. The Fast CMEs occur more often near the peak of the 11-year solar cycle.
The ones to watch out for: A "halo" event is one where the CME is headed in the direction of Earth. The "geo-effectiveness of the CME means the risk of Eearhn impact. "
How to look for CMEs: The Sun rotates around every 27 days. The sunspot rotates with the Sun. Regions can reappear, month after month An unknown triggeer causes a sunspot to send out a CME. So its possible to forecast repeated cycles of the sunspots, in the sunspot season. but not when a CME will form,, or if that CME may impact the Earth. As not all do. For example two large CMEs in January 2012 created auroras, but most of the energy “missed” the Earth.

Three CCD cameras: SMEI was designed to detect and forecast the arrival of CMEs and other heliospheric structures moving toward and passing by Earth; it consists of three CCD cameras, each viewing a band of sky.
The December 26 effect: The solar wind sees the strongest geomagnetic field at the time of the Northern ( approx December 21 ) and Southern Solstice. (approx 20 June). "This is a Universal Time effect [not a day/night effect] that happens because the magnetic poles are tipped towards the Sun at specific times

1. 16:30 Greenwich Mean Time=UT for the Northern pole and
2. 4:30 for the Southern Pole.