A Class M9 Solar Flare was observed This Morning... The shock wave should reach Earth, sometime on the 24th or 25th, depending on just where you live. Some of the more "Energetic Websites" are predicting "Dire Consequences" from this CME Event. It is my belief, that those of my Monkey Brothers and Sisters, that live above 45 Degrees Latitude, and have clear skies, will have the opportunity to see some really nice Northern Lights. (Aurora) Other than that, I suspect not much will happen. Oh Yea, and the Ham Radio Monkeys, will see the Ionosphere, do some really lively dancing, for the next few days. ..... YMMV..... some may want to put another layer of Tinfoil, on their Hats....
http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/tim/2012/01/23/M9burst_620x350.jpg Neat. "An R2 Radio Blackout resulted. A 19 minute long, 10cm Radio Burst (TenFlare) was detected as well. This event did produce a Full-Halo Coronal Mass Ejection (CME), and is generally Earth directed." SOLARHAM.com / SOLARCYCLE 24.com / Solar Cycle 24 / Spaceweather / Amateur Radio VHF Aurora Website / Sunspots / Solar Flares They have a video of it.
We had a big CME on the 19th which hit us yesterday. Did anyone report any comm failures? SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids
Not that I heard... My morning Net, was just fine the last three days, running... I am looking forward to what happens tomorrow Morning, and Wed. Morning... to see if there is a difference...
Not here. However that was a class C. This is an order of magnitude greater, at class M. Class M and class X are the ones we worry about.
Just watching the nat. fox news, they had an astrout talking about the one hitting us this morning, and evidently they are even re routing planes in asia to fly at a lower level to try and avoid some of the radiation. Also, this is going to be the heavies up in the Northern Pole area. Sorry Bruce. Coming your way I guess !
A class M9 solar flare is one step beneath a class X. Classifications are based on an letter, then magintude number, for example: C 1 to 9, then M 1 to 9, then X 1 to 9. Anything over class M5 is potentially disruptive, anything over M7 is something to be aware of. This is the low end of the danger spectrum, but still dangerous. Hope to see Bruce online today, but his Inet is satellite based, so he could be offline until the storm subsides.
This morning's hit from a solar flare Planes expected to reroute following massive solar eruption A powerful M9-class solar storm that unleashed a coronal mass ejection toward Earth in the early hours of Jan. 23, 2012 (GMT).CREDIT: NASA/SDO/SOHO An immense blast of plasma spewed late Sunday night from the sun led to the strongest radiation storm bombarding our planet since 2005, and a rare warning from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency -- and even a plan to redirect certain high-flying airplanes. NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center -- the nation’s official source of warnings about space weather and its impact on Earth -- issued a watch for a geomagnetic storm expected to hit our planet Tuesday morning after a satellite witnessed an ultraviolet flash from the massive solar eruption, according to Spaceweather.com. There is no risk to people on Earth, Doug Biesecker of the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center told FoxNews.com. But as a rare precaution, polar flights on Earth are expected to be re-routed, Kathy Sullivan, deputy administrator of NOAA, said today at a Meteorological Society meeting in New Orleans, La., according to Space.com. Eruptions on the sun shoot tremendous streams of charged particles away from the star -- in this case directly towards us. "There is little doubt that the cloud is heading in the general direction of Earth," Spaceweather.com announced in an alert. The blast from the immense solar radiation storm let loose with a so called coronal mass ejection (CME) that will hit the atmosphere Tuesday morning, something NASA and NOAA monitor for as it could cause problems for astronauts, communications satellites, and even rocket launches. “A preliminary inspection of SOHO/STEREO imagery suggests that the CME will deliver a strong glancing blow to Earth's magnetic field on Jan. 24-25 as it sails mostly north of our planet," SpaceWeather’s bulletin read. It could also affect navigation and the power grid. The solar flare spat out late Sunday, Jan. 22, at 10:59 p.m. EST was rated an M9-class eruption -- nearly an X-class flare, the most powerful type of solar storm. NASA spokeswoman Kelly Humphries told Space.com the six spaceflyers currently living and working on the orbiting outpost are not in any danger. "The flight surgeons have reviewed the space weather forecasts for the flare and determined that there are no expected adverse effects or actions required to protect the on-orbit crew," Humphries told SPACE.com in an email. The flare led to the largest radiation storm of its kind since 2005 -- one still only described as a three on the scale of one to five, Biesecker told AFP. NOAA measures geomagnetic storms on a five-point scale from 1 to 5. G1 storms are minor, leading to weak power grid fluctuations and having only minor impact on satellites. G5 storms are extreme, leading to widespread voltage control problems, damage to transformers, radio outages and satellite problems. NOAA warned that of geomagnetic storms on Tuesday as well -- another result of the flare. They may be as strong as G3, causing intermittent navigation issues and problems with low-Earth satellites. The sun's activity waxes and wanes on an 11-year cycle, Space.com reported. Currently, activity in Solar Cycle 24 is expected to ramp up toward a "solar maximum" in 2013. This still from a NASA space observatory video shows one view of a powerful, M9-class solar storm that unleashed a coronal mass ejection toward Earth in the early hours of Jan. 23, 2012 (GMT).
I think I'm gonna miss the light show, we are expected to get 1 1/2" of rain today and more of the same tomorrow. However, maybe this will be strong enough to burn off all the precipitation we've been getting lately and are expecting to get.
Just to let folks know.... at 10:00 Alaska local the HF BANDS were unsettled, but active this morning, and I did have comms with the western half of the US, on 14 Mhz with no Issues. SAT Based Stuff is working just fine as of now. so I suspect it is as I expected..... We will see just how things play out over the next 36 hours... ..... YMMV....
I hear some Pings.... but not much here... I noticed that 75 and 80 are Significantly DOWN, as compared to yesterday. I will post agin in the Morning with my 20 Meter observations...
20 meters was just fine and Open to the lower 48, this morning.... Geomagnetic Storm is manageable on HF today, so far.....
ESA Report...1/24/12 ESA News ESA Communications Portal 24 January 2012 Solar storm heading toward Earth A large solar flare yesterday triggered a coronal mass ejection travelling at 1400 km/s that will reach Earth today. An energetic eruption of this level can disrupt satellites, so operation teams at ESA and other organisations are closely monitoring the storm. A coronal mass ejection (CME) is a huge cloud of magnetised plasma from the Sun's atmosphere -- the corona -- thrown into interplanetary space. They often occur in association with a solar flare. This ejection was detected by the ESA/NASA SOHO and NASA Stereo spaceborne solar observatories. CMEs can produce geomagnetic storms when they reach Earth, between two and six days after leaving the Sun. The solar flare, at 03:59 GMT on Monday, also triggered the strongest stream of protons seen since 2005. It is likely to cause a minor geomagnetic storm that is not expected to have any serious effect on ground infrastructure such as phone networks, but it might trigger auroral displays at high latitudes. While the flare was stronger than average and the proton storm is the first strong one in seven years, no visible effects on the ground are expected. Images of the Sun, the source of the flare and the CME are available via the SOHO mission page. ESA's Proba-2 satellite is also returning images. [NOTE: Images and weblinks supporting this release are available at ESA Portal - Solar storm heading toward Earth - images ]
BT, Thanks, I was curious if 6 would open. 20 is noisy with mostly US on CW. 0120z there's a pile up on tx ~7023 rx up.