blasts of fire that come off the sun, there constant they never stop.
Oversimplified analogy: the solar wind is a near continuous fairly gentle outflow of gas from the sun in all directions, a solar flare is a giant hurricane force gust blown suddenly away from the sun in one single direction.
The first weather satellites allowed meteorologists and forecasters to see Earth from space and get a larger picture of cloud formations from above. The program was called TIROS and there were 10 satellites in the series. (A good link is provided below) Prior to TIROS, there were few options available to help meteorologists to predict the weather.