NOAA says tonight's 'cannibal' solar storm could be worst in 165 YEARS and cause GPS and power outages - as they reveal exact time it'll hit

Earth could witness the worst solar storm in 165 years as five streams of plasma released from the sun this week are set to make crash into our atmosphere tonight.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) revealed Friday that the worst-case scenario would be what happened during the 1859 Carrington event, which set telegraph stations on fire and cutting communications worldwide.

In our modern-day society a geomagnetic storm - a major disturbance of Earth's magnetosphere- of that magnitude would cause widespread electrical disruptions, blackouts and damage to critical infrastructure.

Scientists have also predicted that three of the five streams, known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs), could combine to create a powerful 'cannibal CME.'

Data about what is in store for our planet will likely be captured around 8 pm ET when the explosions of plasma racing through space will be nearly one million miles from our planet - and NOAA plans to issue alerts immediately.

'We anticipate we will get one shock after another. We are really buckling down here,' Clinton Wallace, director of NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC), said during the Friday media briefing.

While officials are predicting an event a step below than Carrington, which was a geomagnetic storm level 5 (G5), they are not discounting that we could reach a an event on the lower end of the same measurement that ranges from G1 to G5.

The cannibal CME is predicted to spark G3 storms, while the other two could reach G4.  

'We are a little concerned because we have not seen this in a long time, [which is why] we thought it warranted special attention, ' said Dahl.

'We have discussed this with FEMA because they need to know, not that we are expecting a catastrophic collapse.' 

NOAA issued a Severe (G4) Geomagnetic Storm Watch late Thursday night, noting a a large sunspot cluster had produced several moderate to strong solar flares since Wednesday at 5am ET.

Sunspots are cooler parts on the sun's surface caused by massive changes in our star's magnetic field. Often bigger than planets, sunspots appear dark on the sun's surface because they are cooler than other parts - although they're still very hot, around 6,500°F.

'This is an unusual and potentially historic event,' said Wallace.

NOOA is currently preparing for the CMEs to reach NASA's Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE), which was designed to study spaceborne energetic particles and sits about about 870,000 miles.

'That's how we identify the arrival of these one million miles from Earth at that point. When we see the CMEs arrive at the satellite,' Dahl said.

'That's when we will know the intensity that may develop here at Earth by different things in the solar wind that we look for.

'So with the speed of these events, roughly, we're talking an average speed here of around 500 miles per second. 

'That basically means there could be about 20 to 45 minute of lead time.' 

He continued to explain that the reason this geomagnetic storm 'is a giant' is because of two colossal sunspot clusters: one in the northern hemisphere of the sun and another in the southern hemisphere.