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Forecasters will soon measure the weather in space from a new operations branch set up by the Met Office.  

The Space Weather Operations Centre will open next week in Exeter after years of preparation and millions of pounds of investment.

It was created in 2011 after the Government added Solar Storms to the National Risk Register of Civil Emergencies. 

Solar flares and coronal mass ejections are among weather phenomenons forecasters will be watching out for in the new space weather centre 

From next week, anyone will be able to find out about weather in earth's orbit and look out for potential disruptions. 

While immediate effects of weather in space are not always experienced on earth, solar storms can cause power outages or satellite failure across the world. 

The need to monitor such risks has become even greater, say experts, as society is ever more dependent on technology.

The Met Office has teamed up with the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to build the centre which opens on Wednesday. 

Among the team's tasks will be to pinpoint possible sources of disruption near the sun. 

'We'll be analysing sun spots to see how complex they are,' Chris Bulmer, a Met Office space forecaster told the Guardian. 

'We know that certain sunspot groups are very unlikely to produce coronal mass ejections, wheras others are highly likely to. 

'So we can forecast an elevated risk of a big solar flare or one of these CMEs happening.'