Those disappointed by the lack of flair in last week’s solar flare should look on the bright side—there will be more opportunities to experience technological disruption courtesy of the sun’s magnetism.

“This is not a matter of if, it is simply a matter of when and how big,” National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration head Jane Lubchenco told attendees at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Although scientists expected the February 14 solar flare—the largest in four years—to have more of an impact, the phenomenon was dulled by a lucky alignment of the flare’s and Earth's magnetic fields, according to Wired Science. Had the two not been so magnetically simpatico, results could have ranged from wide-scale disruption of communications systems to power outages and GPS failures. As it was, the flare did little more than brighten up the northern lights.

“There were some nice displays of aurora, but you had to live in Finland, northern Canada or Alaska to see them,” Joe Kunches, a forecaster at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center, told Wired. “This one was the lowest storm category that we even pay any attention to.”

The geomagnetic storms are assigned categories ranking from G1 to G5. Although last week’s hit turned out to be a G1, it could just as easily have been higher. That’s because a flare’s magnetism can align with Earth’s in such a way that it either keeps charged particles from entering Earth’s magnetosphere or lets them in, as Wired explains it. There’s no way to know how the magnetism of each solar burst will line up, but the more particles at the party, the more ruckus raised.

“Power grids, air traffic control systems, and intelligent transport systems need to be looked at,” the Toronto Star quoted Stephan Lechner of the European Commission Institute for Protection and Security of the Citizen as saying. “And would our financial trading places have to shut down if the accuracy of the time stamp for an electronic order was not given any more?”

Although the answer is unclear—new safeguards against solar activity are constantly being sought—it’s most likely yes. Since the last cycle of heightened sun action (known as solar max) in 2000, we’ve become increasingly vulnerable, geomagnetically speaking.

In 1859, when the strongest recorded solar storm struck, there was little to disrupt besides telegraph transmissions, and even those weren’t too unmanageable. Since then, less powerful storms have shut down phone service across an entire state and left Quebec without power for 12 hours. Although there’s no point in wringing hands over what solar impacts the future might bring, sitting on them isn’t likely to do the trick either, Lubchenco points out.

“This recent solar flare really illustrates that we need to pay attention to space weather,” she told the AAAS meeting, according to Wired. “The watchword is, predict and prepare.”