Call it a "solar El Niņo," an increasingly troublesome aspect of the sun that should make itself known about the year 2000. That's when our nearest star will reach a condition called solar max, the peak of the sunspot cycle.

About every 11 years the sun's energy peaks. Sunspots, dark islands of relatively cool gases on the star's surface, and solar flares, or huge emissions of gas and electromagnetic waves, both increase. Solar wind--streams of high-energy particles radiating in all directions--can achieve a hurricanelike intensity.

In 1989, the last peak in the cycle, a solar storm resulted in a blown voltage regulator on the Hydro-Quebec Power Grid in Canada. Within two minutes, a cascade of broken circuits caused a power blackout that cost the company at least $10 million and lasted several days.

The disruptions in 2000 will be worse according to Sunanda Basu, an atmospheric scientist with the National Science Foundation and a pioneer in space weather research. Large solar flares could trip circuit breakers in power grids all over the northern latitudes.