Solar Activity and Space Weather Update thread

[Stavros Kiri]

Yeah, this could be a pain. I have a medical shift tomorrow morning in two remote locations a few hours apart, and I was relying on Google Maps and GPS to get me there. Now I've printed out hard copies of the directions as backups. Yikes, we get so used to technology!

Yep, true enough - it could also affect communications [including/as well as internet ...], however I sure hope that it won't ... (of course it would have been a lot worse if it was a category G5 – but still, even so, internet could fail on occassion or locally etc., so I would say, yes, watch out with the GPS ...)

 

[Stavros Kiri]

Update for the Storm (May 10, 2024):

A)
"The ongoing storm is producing low-latitude auroras in the southern hemisphere. Ken James sends this picture from the Snake Valley Observatory in Victoria, Australia:

"The red, yellow and green colours were easily visible to my naked eye," says James.

Readers in the USA should note that the southern latitude of Victoria, Australia, 37 degrees, is the same as the northern latitude of central California. That's how far down auroras could be seen if it were dark instead of daylight in North America.

Why is this storm so severe? Take a look at the solar wind data from NOAA's DSCOVR spacecraft:

After the CME struck, the speed of the solar wind blowing around our planet abruptly increased to more than 700 km/s. More importantly, south-pointing magnetic fields from the sun washed over the Earth, opening a crack in our planet's magnetosphere. Solar wind poured through the gap to turbo-charge the storm."

B)
"Solar wind
speed: 744.0 km/sec
density: 13.23 protons/cm3
more data: ACE, DSCOVR
Updated: Today at 1046pm UT

X-ray Solar Flares
6-hr max: M3 2108 UT May10
24-hr: X3 0654 UT May10
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at: 2250 UT"

(from spaceweather.com)

Note: thus we notice further increase on the Solar Wind ...

 

[berkeman]

My wife and I will be looking outside tonight! (Silicon Valley USA, 37.3387° N)

 

[Flyboy]

From my girlfriend’s phone…

 

[gmax137]

near Reno, NV. 30 sec exposure ISO 320, f 3.5, 18 mm on DX sensor

 

[pinball1970]

Northern lights in the UK early hours, breathtaking. A colleague and pf member got some nice images so I will badger him to upload.

 

[Stavros Kiri]

Wow! great photos & witnesses of the storms ...
Unfortunately, completely overcast in my location.
Kp index (index for auroral activity) reached 8 early this morning ... (was already 7, high enough, yesterday).

Northern lights in the UK early hours, breathtaking. A colleague and pf member got some nice images so I will badger him to upload.

wow ... lucky ... - please do!

Note: ranges: G1 to G5 [storm category/intensity] and Kp0 to Kp9 (max) for auroral activity probability ... (Kp5 is the threshold for storm-like activity ...).
[we're at G4, Kp8 this time ...]

Latest update edit: finally the storm did reach G5 yesterday or this morning, so that's a correction for above. At G3 right now, & more coming - see next post ...

 

[Stavros Kiri]

Today, May 11 :
(... & a few minutes before posting this, the Solar Wind reached/was 784Km/sec or more)

" THE STORM IS NOT OVER: A CME hit Earth's magnetic field on May 10th, sparking the biggest geomagnetic storm in more than 20 years--an extreme (category G5) event. It is subsiding now (currently category G3), but it is not over. More CMEs are expected to hit Earth's magnetic field during the next 24-48 hours, and they could push the storm back to extreme levels. (...)

AURORAS IN FLORIDA AND PUERTO RICO: Many people around the world have just seen auroras for the first time in their lives. This includes residents of the Florida Keys. Ron Jarrell sends this photo from Big Pine Key at latitude 24.7° N:

"The auroras were so beautiful!" says Jarrell, who needed no more than his smartphone to photograph the display.

Seeing auroras in the Florida Keys is extraordinary, but the light show didn't stop there. Sky watchers saw the sky turn red across the Carribean. These pictures were taken from the southeast coast of Puerto Rico at latitude 18.1° N:

Photo credits: (left) Carlos Rolling of Hormigueros; (right) Adriel Jarell of Cabo Rojo​

"The last events on record when auroras were seen from Puerto Rico were in 1859 and 1921, so tonight was an historic event", says Eddie Irizarry from the Sociedad de Astronomia del Caribe (Astronomical Society of the Caribbean).

The low latitude of these sightings would seem to place this storm among the greatest aurora displays of the past 500 years. Stay tuned for more information on this topic when the storm is finally over a few days from now. (...)

(...)


ANOTHER SIGNIFICANT CME IS COMING: Giant sunspot AR3664 unleashed another X-flare today (May 11th @ 0139 UT)--its strongest yet. The X5.8-class explosion produced a significant CME with an Earth-directed component:

The snowy speckles in this SOHO coronagraph movie are caused by energetic particles hitting the spacecraft's camera. The particles are being accelerated toward the spacecraft (and toward Earth) by shock waves in the emerging CME. They are a sign that it is a potent storm cloud with an Earth-directed component.

This CME could reach Earth on May 13th, adding new power to the ongoing geomagnetic storm. "

 

[Stavros Kiri]

The "monster" sunspot on limb very soon - extreemely high speed [but very low density] solar wind right now ... - take a look:

"Solar wind
speed: 906.2 km/sec
density: 0.41 protons/cm3
more data: ACE, DSCOVR
Updated: Today at 0945 UT

X-ray Solar Flares
6-hr max: M2 0552 UT May12
24-hr: X1 1144 UT May11
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at: 0950 UT

Daily Sun: 12 May 24

Expand: labels | no labels | Carrington

Giant sunspot AR3664 has a 'beta-gamma-delta' magnetic field that harbors energy for X-class solar flares.Credit: SDO/HMI "

+ news, today Sun May 12, 2024 (Mother's day):

1.
"WAITING FOR THE NEXT CME: A geomagnetic storm is underway, but it is relatively minor (G1/G2). Conditions won't intensify again until the next CME arrives. NOAA forecasters are currently predicting a return to extreme (G4/G5) storming on May 12th. We think May 13th is more likely when a CME from yesterday's X5.8-class flare is expected to arrive. Either way, stay tuned! "

2. (cf. previous posts about auroras even in Florida, Puerto Rico & Caribbean etc. – plus Mexico too ... see below)

"auroras also appeared in Mexico. René Saade photographed the display looking north from the beach in Mazatlan, Sinaloa at latitude 23.2° N:

"This is not something you see every day--auroras and palm trees," says Saade. "Amazing!"

The low latitude of these sightings would seem to place this storm among the greatest aurora displays of the past 500 years. Stay tuned for more information on this topic when the storm is finally over a few days from now. "

 

[Stavros Kiri]

A) Latest predictions (still May 12 ...):

" THE STORM IS OVER, BUT... This weekend's extreme geomagnetic storm is over, but there might be a last gasp. NOAA forecasters are currently predicting a return to severe (G4) conditions on May 12th when one or more CMEs might hit Earth's magnetic field. Of particular interest is the CME from yesterday's X5.8-class flare -- a potent storm cloud that could spark renewed auroras if its internal magnetic field is oriented correctly. (...)

EXITING THE STRIKE ZONE: Sunspot AR3664 is still a giant, easily the equal of Carrington's sunspot, but it poses a declining threat to Earth. Why? Because it is exiting the strike zone. This picture from Philip Smith of Manorville NY shows the active region approaching the sun's western limb:

CMEs emitted by the departing sunspot are no longer flying toward Earth. At most only glancing blows are likely from eruptions on May 12th through 14th.

The danger could return on May 15th, however. On that date the sunspot will pass through a region of the sun magnetically connected to Earth via the Parker Spiral. Subatomic debris (protons and electrons) from explosions on May 15th and 16th could spiral back to Earth and rain down our planet. This is called a "radiation storm;" it can upset satellite electronics and cause polar radio blackouts. "

B)
+Latest look at current status:
" Solar wind
speed: 878.5 km/sec
density: 1.80 protons/cm3
more data: ACE, DSCOVR
Updated: Today at 0746 UT

X-ray Solar Flares
6-hr max: M9 1626 UT May12
24-hr: M9 1626 UT May12
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at: 1950 UT

Daily Sun: 12 May 24

Expand: labels | no labels | Carrington

Giant sunspot AR3664 has a 'beta-gamma-delta' magnetic field that harbors energy for X-class solar flares.Credit: SDO/HMI "

Obviously we notice a high solar wind speed and a departing AR3664 ...

 

[Stavros Kiri]

A.
"AURORAS IN STRANGE PLACES: The historic geomagnetic storm of May 10-11, 2024, produced auroras across Europe, Asia, Japan, Mexico, and all 50 US states--even Hawaii. Hundreds of millions of people saw the colored lights for the first time in their lives. No photographer could have planned to frame Opuntia chlorotica with the red glow of a CME, yet here it is:

Kyle Nulla Cognomen sends this picture from Las Vegas, Nevada. "What a gorgeous view of the desert sky illuminated by aurora," he says. "I could see the reds and greens with my naked eye!"

Our photo gallery is filled with unusual images like this one--auroras in strange places, illuminating cactii, palm trees, pyramids, and Carribean beaches. There's no way to pick a favorite. Or is there? Browse the gallery to explore the extraordinary global display."

Amazing photos indeed, in the gallery link above. On May 10 & 11 auroras were also seen even in South Europe. I saw an article posting auroras even in Athens Greece.

B. Auroral activity status now:
" Current Auroral Oval:

Credit: NOAA/Ovation

Planetary K-index
Now: Kp= 6.33 storm
24-hr max: Kp= 7.00 strong
explanation | more data
Interplanetary Mag. Field
Btotal: 8.40 nT
Bz: -1.68 nT south
more data: ACE, DSCOVR
Updated: Today at 0141 UT "

C. Anyone on PF having their own photos or useful updates please post if you can etc. ...

 

[Stavros Kiri]

Important Note regarding the previous post above: the 4 links ["Europe", "USA", "New Zealand", "Antarctica"] in the "Current Auroral Oval" display diagram can only be opened (giving a modified diagram on your screen in a live manner) by visiting the original site spaceweather.com ...

P.S. edit: The links have now been removed by the PF administrator (since my editing time had elapsed) in order to avoid confusion about those 4 links and even accidental unnecessary clicking.

 

[Stavros Kiri]

Tue May 13, 2024

"THE BIG STORM IS OVER: NOAA forecasters say that the storm is really over now. There's no chance of additional G5 activity this week because all the big CMEs have already come and gone. However, relatively minor G1 or G2-class storms are possible on May 13th in response to a glancing blow from this off-target CME."

AR3664 is on west limb, departing, however see earlier post about possible events/threats around May 15 & 16 that the sunspot may hold.
Kp (planetary aurora index) 3.33 at this point (quiet). Note that it reached the max value 9 [between May 10 & 11] during the passed historic [G4 &] G5 storm(s).

 

[Brian in Victoria BC]

I would have missed the northern lights entirely but a couple of my old tenants (who had previously lived up north) were visiting and the husband went out for a smoke. He pointed to the clouds and said that was it starting. I am in Victoria BC. So, it looked like wispy low white clouds (could have been high clouds) and they were arranged into "contrails that were meeting at a point or "pole" just south of the middle of the sky! It was around 11 pm and later and every 15 or 20 minutes, we would see the green and reddish lights, and the clouds would form those white lines again, before waning to nothing, the clouds arranging themselves (presumably along the magnetic lines of force of the earth was for me the highlight) as if we were in a giant planetarium. Does anyone have an explanation? Were the conditions above me like a cloud chamber? (just random luck)? And why did the lines meet just to the south of the mid point of the sky. (Nearly all the lines were north of that "meeting spot" but a few faint ones came from the south too. My Tenants and another friend who lived at one time in Dawson's Creek up north knew about this effect but it isn't mentioned anywhere in the reporting. I just found it to be the most amazing thing. We had about 3 hours of watching this before we got too tired.

 

[Stavros Kiri]

I would have missed the northern lights entirely but a couple of my old tenants (who had previously lived up north) were visiting and the husband went out for a smoke. He pointed to the clouds and said that was it starting. I am in Victoria BC. So, it looked like wispy low white clouds (could have been high clouds) and they were arranged into "contrails that were meeting at a point or "pole" just south of the middle of the sky! It was around 11 pm and later and every 15 or 20 minutes, we would see the green and reddish lights, and the clouds would form those white lines again, before waning to nothing, the clouds arranging themselves (presumably along the magnetic lines of force of the earth was for me the highlight) as if we were in a giant planetarium. Does anyone have an explanation? Were the conditions above me like a cloud chamber? (just random luck)? And why did the lines meet just to the south of the mid point of the sky. (Nearly all the lines were north of that "meeting spot" but a few faint ones came from the south too. My Tenants and another friend who lived at one time in Dawson's Creek up north knew about this effect but it isn't mentioned anywhere in the reporting. I just found it to be the most amazing thing. We had about 3 hours of watching this before we got too tired.

Thanks for painting those pictures ...
Cloud patterns can do a lot of things (so it could be luck too) but (since clouds have electric charge & move accordingly) there could be an effect too (that I haven't heard of myself) consistent with the dynamics of the auroras & geomagnetic storms (?). Your friends, as you say, have noticed it before. I think it's worth investigating, and I'll try to do a search for it too. May be someone else here knows about it etc. - e.g. @davenn (?) ...
[in general moving charges could/would align/interact with/according to magnetic field lines etc. ... (?)] [would that explain it for clouds? and what speed (of wind?) and charge? I'm not sure at this point ... – insufficient data ...]

 

[Tom.G]

Could those White Lines be the Aurora itself shining thru thin clouds?

 

[Brian in Victoria BC]

Could those White Lines be the Aurora itself shining thru thin clouds?

I doubt it, It was in the complete northern half of the sky, with some in the southern half. People who had lived in northern British Columbia, (my tenant for one, and my friend who lived in Dawson Creek for a while) knew all about it so even at the start when it just looked like a weird cloud formation above us (wider lines than later at night) and there were no Aurora at all, he called me out, saying that it was "starting". Later on it felt like we were in a planetarium and someone had painted the longitude lines in the sky above us. Obviously they had painted it in the wrong place because the lines came together as a "pole" just south of the middle of the sky. Presumably this was because the sun was at the other side of the earth at that stage and the particles whipped round the earth from all sides and some converged there. (I said latitude earlier by mistake). I presume the moisture content was just right and the charged particles traveling along the magnetic lines of the earth were ionizing and causing condensation just like in a cloud chamber, maybe even protons were combining high up with oxygen up there. It waxed and waned with the aurora. So, 2 people I personally know were not surprised at all to see it. I bet if you find more people who live in northern Canada or southern Alaska, I have no doubt they will confirm it. I grew up in Ireland where you will see nearly every cloud formation known to man, but I never saw anything like that before.

 

[Astranut]

Aurora Borealis, viewed over the night of Fri 10th to Sat 11th May 2024. From Hartshead Pike Ashton-under-Lyne Greater Manchester England.

Watching the sunset whilst waiting for the Aurora.

Raw image top, enhanced below.
Ursa Major is visible with Arcturus to the bottom left.

Looking towards the Pennines, Mossley in the foreground.

As above raw top enhanced below. Right above, the Corona. With Hartshead Pike in the foreground.

 

[Astranut]

Final image, about 50 people came to view and image the event. Raw left, enhanced right, all taken with a cell phone. Care of excessive badgering by Pinball.

 

[Astranut]

Arcturus on this one not in the above, bottom left, apologies.

 

[pinball1970]

Arcturus on this one not in the above, bottom left, apologies.

View attachment 345245

Took your time.

 

[Stavros Kiri]

Wow! for the photos above etc. ...

News just came in. The monster sunspot didn't stop there:
Tue May 14, 2024
THE BIGGEST SOLAR FLARE OF THE CURRENT SOLAR CYCLE: Earth-orbiting satellites have just detected the most intense solar flare of the current solar cycle (so far)--an X8.7-category blast from giant sunspot AR3664. Extreme ultraviolet radiation from the flare ionized the top of Earth's atmosphere and caused a deep shortwave blackout over the Americas.

​

​ Above: Today's X8.7-class solar flare photographed by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory

Adding some more details about the phenomenon from spaceweather.com :

"Because the sunspot is behind the edge of the solar disk, the flare was partially eclipsed. It was probably even stronger than it appeared. "X8.7" is almost certainly an underestimate of the flare's true strength.

Extreme ultraviolet radiation from the flare ionized the top of Earth's atmosphere, causing a deep shortwave radio blackout over the Americas. Ham radio operators, aviators and mariners may have noticed a sudden loss of signal at all frequencies below 30 MHz.

Subatomic debris from this event might soon reach Earth, guided toward our planet by the Parker Spiral (read the story below for more information). Also, a CME might be in the offing. Stay tuned for updates! (...)

EARTH IS CONNECTED TO SUNSPOT AR3664: Giant sunspot AR3664 is no longer facing Earth. That makes it extra dangerous. The Carrington-class sunspot is passing over the sun's western limb--a region of the sun that is magnetically connected to our planet. Indeed, we are feeling the effects of that connection right now; take a look at this map of ongoing radio blackouts:

Red zones in the map show where shortwave radio signals are being absorbed. Inside the Arctic Circle, frequencies below 30 MHz are almost completely blacked out, a nuisance for polar aviators and ham radio operators.

What's causing this? Protons accelerated by solar flares in the magnetic canopy of AR3664 are following the Parker Spiral back to Earth. Think of it as a magnetic superhighway. The arriving particles are funneled by our planet's magnetic field toward the poles where they ionize the atmosphere and interfere with the normal transmission of shortwave radio.

This polar cap absorption event could last for days, especially if it is boosted by more flares from AR3664. You can can monitor its progress here. "

 

[Stavros Kiri]

A. This is awesome:

"AURORAS OVER THE GRAND CANYON: You know a solar storm is big when ... it produces auroras over the Grand Canyon. Brian A. Klimowski photographed the rare display on May 11, 2024:

"This was just the afterglow of a more intense G5 storm on May 10th, but still so beautiful over the Canyon!" says Klimowski .

Geologists say that the Colorado River has been carving the Grand Canyon for 5 or 6 million years. No one knows how often auroras have been seen during that time. This is what we do know: The auroras of May 10-11, 2024, were among the most widespread of the past 500 years. We will be writing a story about that in a few days."

B.
"MONSTER SUNSPOT TARGETS MARS: First Earth, now Mars. Carrington-class sunspot AR3664 is now directly facing the Red Planet. NASA's Mars rover Perseverance saw it yesterday through the dusty air of Jezero Crater:

On May 14th, AR3664 produced an X8.6-class solar flare, the strongest flare of the solar cycle, and hurled a corresponding CME directly toward Mars. NASA models suggest it should hit Mars on May 17th, potentially sparking global auroras.

"We're bracing for impact!" says says Nick Schneider of the University of Colorado's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP). Schneider works with an ultraviolet camera on NASA's MAVEN spacecraft, which may be able to observe the display. (...)"