I saw this huge spot right in the middle of the sun on Friday
and thought it was a cloud at the time. When I still saw it
an hour later, I knew it had to be a sunspot. There was a thin
layer of clouds in the way and it made viewing the sun
relatively easy. With my eyesight, I'm shocked I could see
it.

http://www.space.com/scienceastronom...ts_040723.html

Last year there was a huge corona mass ejection--which was not
pointed towards the earth. One Japanese satellite was damaged.
If this ever happens to us when one is pointed towards us, then we
can expect big problems. This was associated with the fastest
growing pair of sunspots recorded.

CME's over power the earths magnetic field. At that point they
can induce huge over currents in long straight power transmission
lines and knock them out.

http://science.nasa.gov/ssl/pad/solar/cmes.htm

http://lasco-www.nrl.navy.mil/cmelist.html

Good pictures here
http://spacescience.com/headlines/y2000/ast13sep_1.htm

I believe this was the real reason for the big power outage last year.
For some reason the power companies find something else to blame
even though physicist's consider CMEs to be a big threat to the power
grid, and we had several big ones last year.

If a big CME strikes the earth you can expect about 18 hours notice.
Loss of radio communication, satellites, and power outages will
occur, and there will be new records in aurora borealis sightings at
lower latitudes.