Black Sky Event

If the your cell has no signal at all, or is just dead. No traffic noises, no aircraft. Large plumes of smoke coming from the area of any nearby cities. If home or at work I'd see if anything at all was functional. In a modern office/manufacturing building the emergency lighting devices will probably work, but nothing else. In an EMP or CME, anything with semiconductors will probably die, especially if they are plugged into shore power or have an antenna. Most emergency diesel gensets won't work either - the controller will get zorched.
So it will be "it depends" - if any semiconductor based devices are healthy, it will probably be relatively short term. If not - plan for the worst.

 

I wonder how badly all things with chips would be fried. Red dots, LED flashlights, electronic locks on gun safes, electronic watches, night vision equipment and so on. I've heard from some that some of the newer cars are pretty well shielded and might run, I guess it boils down to nobody knows for sure and the size of the EMP. Run of the mill, we might skate, a super EMP would be worse. I don't think Iran has the ability - yet, NoKorea, China, Russia - for sure.

 

Seems to me they detonated one last year, maybe 2017 with a yield of 160 KT, at least the news that I saw said it had the double whump of a hydrogen bomb and 160 KT would be about right for a super EMP, but for those that know more than I, please chime in (that would be most everybody).