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September 16th, 2028 in Raleigh, NC:

High: 76 F
Low: 56 F
Wind: Northeast wind @ 17 mph
Precip: 0.02"
also known as "what is has been on average on that day for the last 50+ years.

If you'd like a more accurate forecast and consider yourself so intelligent, kindly provide me with accurate boundary conditions and initial conditions for a worldwide grid of 1cm (and subsequent conditions on a 1 sec time step) and I'd be happy to plug the values into the equations that have been solved (I have many semesters of notebooks to prove it) and give you an official forecast.

Cheers

TAFs (as forecasts) may be accessed here.
METARs (as reports) there.
The only thing you have to know is the four letter ICAO location of your closest airport.

Go there to find it out, and then... you'll have to decypher the stuff. Have fun !

I know a PHP package that does it quite well.

TAFs (as forecasts) may be accessed here.
METARs (as reports) there.
The only thing you have to know is the four letter ICAO location of your closest airport.

Go there to find it out, and then... you'll have to decypher the stuff. Have fun !

I know a PHP package that does it quite well.

As a GA pilot, I'm always very interested in the weather. One of my favorite sites for weather in my area is westwind.ch which has a lot of good stuff, and of course the good ol' Met Office aviation weather service. When in the United States, I tend to use the NOAA's ADDS service.

NOAA's National Climatic Data Center has a lot of the raw data available, most of it for free (especially if you're coming from a .edu domain). Both US and international data.

Even when the Kp is 9 or 10, aurora are not guaranteed. A previous poster had a link to a much better page, which is an actual map of the aurora over the Northern hemisphere. That page is linked from this page, which has links to both hemispheres, 'movies', higher-res current estimates, and slightly older plots.

Even when the Kp is 9 or 10, aurora are not guaranteed. A previous poster had a link to a much better page, which is an actual map of the aurora over the Northern hemisphere. That page is linked from this page, which has links to both hemispheres, 'movies', higher-res current estimates, and slightly older plots.

Umm, all the evidence *IS* in on the recent East coast power outage. You could have gone to the NOAA website and pulled up the data on August 14th, and seen that there were no events, and only an early morning warning that day (yes, I know the page is in GMT, blackout was at 16:10 EPT = 21:10 GMT)... it takes about a K-6 on the scale before the utilities even start considering conservative ops, and we check real-time DC amp ratings at various stations for actual indications of SMD events.

Umm, all the evidence *IS* in on the recent East coast power outage. You could have gone to the NOAA website and pulled up the data on August 14th, and seen that there were no events, and only an early morning warning that day (yes, I know the page is in GMT, blackout was at 16:10 EPT = 21:10 GMT)... it takes about a K-6 on the scale before the utilities even start considering conservative ops, and we check real-time DC amp ratings at various stations for actual indications of SMD events.

Yes, it did actually make it that far. I have a friend who saw them easily in IN, and FL is hardly much further south.

You can monitor current auroral activity here.

You probably failed to see the lights due to the intense light pollution on the eastern seaboard, which is also the reason why there are no major observatories in the eastern states.

Wasn't it NOAA, who is responsible for studying oceans?

The benifit of them, however, is that diesel-electric subs are quite a bit more silent than their nuclear counterparts

Yeah, until you need to recharge your batteries, everybody in the north atlantic hears you, and a P-3C comes along and sinks your ass.

The aurora come and go on fairly short timescales. Depending on the intensity of the storms, they can shift further south, but most of the time (in the northern hemisphere) they are up in northern Canada and Alaska, away from the main population centres. The last week was good for more southern places, but the days when the results of the last round of flares were reaching the Earth, it was cloudy where I am :-( It takes some luck to have the best aurora + darkness + few clouds.

If you want to know when to expect to see auroras, and whether they extend far enough for you to see them in your neighborhood, check out the maps at this site:

aurora predition maps

minutes to hours for a solar flare, see here

The only time I saw auroras near Canada (in the U.P of Michigan), there was a very faint blue flickering , not at all like the rich colors I see in photographs. Maybe someone further north could tell us how it appears to naked eye?

Could someone please explain how to parse reports such as the NOAA solar forecast? Thanks!

I think it might be worse than that. This flare was only a glancing blow, but even so all short-wave communications through the sunlit hemisphere of the Earth experienced complete blackout conditions.

Saturated the SXI imager as well. For those of you who don't know, SXI is a sun-pointed x-ray imaging device on a weather satellite.

The do post their opinion it reads, "Global Warming is accepted as fact by most of the scientific community." And this is with a president denying that it exists. That is a very strong statement to be making in this political climate.

1. Club of Rome. Back in the early 70's there was an outfit called the Club of Rome. They ran their computer models and claimed that the world would run out of gas in 1985. Got a lot of press when they made their claim. None of them were around in 1985 to admit they were wrong.
2. Ehrlich and Simon. In 1980, Julian Simon (Univ. of Maryland) challenged Paul Ehrlich (Stanford) to a bet. Erhlich had been harping on how with the exploding world population we were going to run out resources real soon and prices were going to skyrocket. Simon called him on it and let him choose any list of goods he wanted. If the basket of goods 10 years later was higher, Ehrlich would win, if the basket was cheaper (in real dollars) then Simon would win. Oil, gold, silver, wheat, and a lot of other goods went into the basket. Simon was right - the basket's price declined over the 10 year span.
3. Global Warming. There's a graph that oxygen isotope variations over the past 500,000 years. The data are derived from ocean sediment cores and are a useful surrogate for temperatures. The isotope ratios are inversely proportional to temperatures and closely track interglacial warming periods. I can't find the original paper but you can see the data graphed on page 10 of this NOAA document. The graph shows a roughly 100,000 year cycle to global temperatures with periods warmer than today. We're right on track right now towards a global uptick just like the past 4 times over the past 500,000 years. We weren't around 410,000, 320,000, 200,000 or 120,000 years ago to cause the last temperature spikes but they happened anyway. The earth may be getting warmer right now but it's not likely that it's due to us pumping CO2 into the atmosphere. Look at the CO2 and Methane data and the temperature correlation isn't all that great.
4. Weather forecasting. In 1963, Lorenz demonstrated that you can't make reliable long term weather forecasts even when you have a perfect weather model and all the data accurate to 6 decimal places. It was a key finding and yet you still have people making global warming forecasts for the next 100 years as if Lorenz hadn't already demonstrated they can't possibly know what they're talking about.

1. Club of Rome. Back in the early 70's there was an outfit called the Club of Rome. They ran their computer models and claimed that the world would run out of gas in 1985. Got a lot of press when they made their claim. None of them were around in 1985 to admit they were wrong.
2. Ehrlich and Simon. In 1980, Julian Simon (Univ. of Maryland) challenged Paul Ehrlich (Stanford) to a bet. Erhlich had been harping on how with the exploding world population we were going to run out resources real soon and prices were going to skyrocket. Simon called him on it and let him choose any list of goods he wanted. If the basket of goods 10 years later was higher, Ehrlich would win, if the basket was cheaper (in real dollars) then Simon would win. Oil, gold, silver, wheat, and a lot of other goods went into the basket. Simon was right - the basket's price declined over the 10 year span.
3. Global Warming. There's a graph that oxygen isotope variations over the past 500,000 years. The data are derived from ocean sediment cores and are a useful surrogate for temperatures. The isotope ratios are inversely proportional to temperatures and closely track interglacial warming periods. I can't find the original paper but you can see the data graphed on page 10 of this NOAA document. The graph shows a roughly 100,000 year cycle to global temperatures with periods warmer than today. We're right on track right now towards a global uptick just like the past 4 times over the past 500,000 years. We weren't around 410,000, 320,000, 200,000 or 120,000 years ago to cause the last temperature spikes but they happened anyway. The earth may be getting warmer right now but it's not likely that it's due to us pumping CO2 into the atmosphere. Look at the CO2 and Methane data and the temperature correlation isn't all that great.
4. Weather forecasting. In 1963, Lorenz demonstrated that you can't make reliable long term weather forecasts even when you have a perfect weather model and all the data accurate to 6 decimal places. It was a key finding and yet you still have people making global warming forecasts for the next 100 years as if Lorenz hadn't already demonstrated they can't possibly know what they're talking about.

Why doesn't NOAA put all the data for public consumption so that anyone can see who is right and who is wrong?

Well, it was said that the data have been online since 2000. The recent paper cites to here as a source for the original data. The original authors cite to a lot of data here. They also cite to a doubtful/dead link (http://holocene.evsc.virginia.edu/pub/MBH98/TREE/ ITRDB/NOAMER/), and a list of their papers is here.

Personally I'm not sure how to make anything of the data, but I hope independent reviewers who can will weigh in on it .... ?!

Why doesn't NOAA put all the data for public consumption so that anyone can see who is right and who is wrong?

Well, it was said that the data have been online since 2000. The recent paper cites to here as a source for the original data. The original authors cite to a lot of data here. They also cite to a doubtful/dead link (http://holocene.evsc.virginia.edu/pub/MBH98/TREE/ ITRDB/NOAMER/), and a list of their papers is here.

Personally I'm not sure how to make anything of the data, but I hope independent reviewers who can will weigh in on it .... ?!

Saturated the SXI imager as well....

Here is a NOAA article on the new giant solar flare.
Looks like it was directed away from earth so it should not have as much of an effect as the previous major flares did.

Does this recent solar activity make any of you feel uneasy? I mean... is it time for Bruce Willis to suit up again and save the planet? Nine X-class solar flares... eeeek. That has to be bad.

Don't know about bad. But there was another one - a REALLY big one - about 1930 GMT / 11:30 PST / 2:30 EST. See this page for the X-ray intensity at the GEOS satellites - at least until it horizons out in a few more hours.

Note that the peak is beyond the saturation of the instrument. BIG.

check here .. The largest X-ray burst I've seen is going on right now (mid-day tuesday US).
That looks _higher_ than an X-Class.

-metric

No. Here's the monthly averaged daily SSNs and here's the last six daily SSNs (scroll a third of the way down to see 'em). The daily SS numbers for the six day period ending on Oct. 28 were 122, 160, 139, 191, 238, and 230. The number dropped to 76 today, which is roughly normal this late in the cycle, but that's because the huge spots are rotating out of view (not to worry, they'll be back in 2 weeks). Once the monthly averages are updated, we'll see that this solar cycle has a peculiar third peak (and even a second peak is somewhat unusual).

Thanks! That's basically what I was looking for. I liked this graph of the recent three day window of activity. Looks like things were gunning this morning almost well enough to see in Massachusetts, had it not been a) cloudy and b) daylight. (Thanks, also, to the helpful AC's telling me to LOOK UP! AT NIGHT!)

Here's the Auroral Activity Map from the Space Environment Center.

At least one of the recent geomagnetic events began just after dawn where I live, so that chance was pretty much shot. Others were overcast or inconvenient (check out the GOES magnetometer for times when the magnetic field was disturbed)

It helps to be in a really dark area - light pollution in a city will just about kill any chance of seeing it. The only time I ever saw it (the '89 geomagnetic storm event), I went out specifically determined to try and catch a glipmse (I was watching the data pretty closely). I drove 30 minutes away from the nearest city lightsource and waited in the dark about two hours total (two shifts). I was just about to call it quits (it was after midnight) and it appeared suddenly. Ten minutes later, it was gone.

Here's the Auroral Activity Map from the Space Environment Center.

At least one of the recent geomagnetic events began just after dawn where I live, so that chance was pretty much shot. Others were overcast or inconvenient (check out the GOES magnetometer for times when the magnetic field was disturbed)

It helps to be in a really dark area - light pollution in a city will just about kill any chance of seeing it. The only time I ever saw it (the '89 geomagnetic storm event), I went out specifically determined to try and catch a glipmse (I was watching the data pretty closely). I drove 30 minutes away from the nearest city lightsource and waited in the dark about two hours total (two shifts). I was just about to call it quits (it was after midnight) and it appeared suddenly. Ten minutes later, it was gone.

Here you go:

http://www.sec.noaa.gov/pmap/index.html

That shows the current aurora activity for both poles. Click on the one nearest to you and wait until there's some activity near you :)

Even if the activity looks quite far from you, check anyway. We had lots of aurora visable here even tho the map showed it about a hundred miles away.

True. Some indicators for solar activity have been recorded for over a hundred years; the aforementioned magnetometer data and the sunspot number: http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/stp/IONO/sunspot.html

Also, prominences located at the edges of the visible "disk" of the sun have been observed probably as long as that: I found some nice modern day examples in here: http://www.digilife.be/club/Franky.Dubois/world.ht m

But, none of these methods produce quantitative data of the precision or scope available today. One of the top instruments (well, intstrument platform actually)is the SOHO spacecraft launched in 1995 http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/

There have probably been other solar observing satellites prior to soho, but I can't remember any specifics (anyone?).

So, yes, unless a particle storm from a CME event hit earth square in the face, so to speak, there would be no quantitative data of such an event older than... a handful of decades?

...both CMEs came from the same spot on the sun?

Yes, they did. The culprit is known as "sunspot 486". More data at www.spaceweather.com.

Is the sun's rotation much greater than 24 hours?

Actually, there's a latitudal variation to the angular speed of the sun's surface. The period of sun's rotation around solar equator is 29 (Earth)days. On the 60 latitude it's 25 days.

If, however, we do have 100+ years date on all CME events, we would be able to say that it's a statistical anomaly. I just think it's more likely that we don't understand enough about the sun's behavior to properly characerize this event.

I suppose it's an anomalous event in the scope of the recorded history of Earth's magnetic field data... True, to extend this probabilistic term to the entire lifespan and surface of the sun would be silly. But, you have to take in he human aspect of the situation; it's on of the biggest events monitored and recorded. It's a one thing to have the mathematical intuition that events of some magnitude are possible, and to actually witness one (ie. you know that it's possible to win lottery. But you don't, very often. At least I don't :) )

I would have to say Yes .

If you can order photos and tables from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration going back to 1874, I can only assume that most major observatories have copies of these records, and (given that they are professionals at this subject matter) are more than qualified to say what is an anomoly or not.

Here. When your area is covered in red go out and look.

It was cloudy and raining when I posted the last time.

However it cleared up by evening. I was working late keeping an eye on the Real-Time Aurora Map which was looking pretty quiet when all of a sudden almost the entire northern hemisphere is coverd in a big red circle.

Went outside and sure enough, the Northern sky is aglow in blue and red.

Very cool.

I prefer this site to plan my aurora watching activities. I was out in my Poquoson, VA yard last night from 7:30 to 8:30 watching some nice red and green auroral glows move about the sky. It would make for an ideal Halloween setting!

The peak in the current cycle was a few years back....see the NOAA's SolarCycle page Considering it's an 11 year cycle, we are supposed to be on the downswing right now....also, don't forget that we're now at two major storms in the last few days, emmenating from two massive (and still growing) sunspots on the surface of the sun...so, I would call this something extraordinary.

Well, gosh, you're right. I think I was trying to include a link to the extreme proton event we're experiencing. This page is great for geosynch orbit, this for an L1 halo orbit.

Well, gosh, you're right. I think I was trying to include a link to the extreme proton event we're experiencing. This page is great for geosynch orbit, this for an L1 halo orbit.

I've been keeping an eye on the link you provided most of the day and the overall area is finally getting larger. It seems we're getting closer and may get a better shot of the show tommorow evening... The clouds may clear up. If they don't clear up here, the skies may be better a bit west....maybe a little road trip to the Poconos?

Also, according to this link , poeple as far south as Texas and Florida may be able to catch a glimps of the aroura.

New images of the xray sun are being taken by the SXI imager once again. Use of the imager had stopped because of an unexpected over-current problem. The SXI team decided that they could safely operate the instrument at a lower voltage, albeit at the expense of a lower signal to noise ratio. The decision was hastened by the dramatic solar events today.

New images of the xray sun are being taken by the SXI imager once again. Use of the imager had stopped because of an unexpected over-current problem. The SXI team decided that they could safely operate the instrument at a lower voltage, albeit at the expense of a lower signal to noise ratio. The decision was hastened by the dramatic solar events today.

According to that URL, it looks like we could... seems to be reaching all the way down to north carolina.

I'm also in Jersey... freaking sucks that possibly the one night we could ever see it this far down, its raining.

and better yet, just go to some recent aurora pics to see what this one probably will look like...

You may notice Radio TV, and even cell phones will be effected (briefly) by this storm. I am on a Broadcast Engineer's mailing list and there have been sporadic reports of problems in the last few days.

The engineer at WBRC reported a rash of viewer calls in the past few days about reception problems including a call from a distant (100 miles) cable system with 4 separate headends, each exhibiting the same poor signal for minutes at a time then clears up.

Also, NOAA describes the geomagnetic affects on radio blackouts as "severe" in the last 24 hours . http://www.sec.noaa.gov/SWN/
Are any of you having similar listener/viewer complaints?

Up in Los Angeles, I have similar interests in what is going on. Here are some links...

Broad overview by the National forest Service

Excellent PDF of California, updated more than daily

Satellite imagery (Forest Service, very amazing)

More satellite imagery (NOAA, false colored with fires highlighted)

National Interagency Fire Centers wildfire reports

Interactive (zoomable) airspace restrictions map

And this is just the tip of the iceberg/what I happened to bookmark.

Anm

Check out what NOAA is doing.

The key thing is to monitor when things go active on the Juan de Fuca Ridge; this is a mid-ocean ridge spreading center. These spreading centers are a component of plate tectonics. It would also be nice to study the precursors to the advent of volcanic and tectonic (e.g., faulting) events.

Ironically (considering your comment about military applications), NOAA-PMEL first started monitoring the JDF Ridge using data from the US military's SOSUS arrays. SOSUS is the Navy's underwater acoustic monitoring system.

Besides testing for the impact, we ought to try to hang on to the resources we have to track these storms. I work in satellite ops, and one of the best resources I've got is The Space Environment Center, which was referenced in the story and provides real time solar monitoring and space weather predictions.

What wasn't mentioned in the story is that there is a move afoot in Congress to either drastically reduce it's funding or eliminate it altogether: U.S. Space Weather Service in Deep Trouble . All for a service that costs a measily $8 million bucks. Think about how much a "surprise" solar event costs. Since space weather can wreak havoc with high technology systems as well as a hurricane can, it's an appropriate thing for NOAA to be providing to the public, IMHO

Why is this so odd?

Because a year on the Sun obviously is not the same as a year on the Earth, and scientist (as of yet) have not been able to pin down why solar activity seems to peak this time of year. At the moment (at least, last time I read up on it, which was during the big Auroral display in November of 2001) scientist were at a loss to explain a 12 month cycle in solar activity.

For more information, and very up to date info on the current situation with the storms, current solar wind patterns, and a gallery of GREAT pictures, try spaceweather or also
Spaceweather Now (NOAA)

Okay, typing that out made me feel stupid, so I went and re-read the article on seasonal variations, and found out I was somewhat wrong, there is a terrestrial reason dealing with OUR magnetic field that makes solar activity seem to affect us more. If you would like to read the article, it can be found Here

Anyways, keep looking up this week, (unless you live in Cincinnati like I do, and it will be cloudy most of the beginning of the week) and you might be suprised at what you see.

X-ray plot

I havn't seen X-ray bursts to this level since I've been watching this graph. (past few months) There was an X level burst yesterday and another larger one a bit before noon today (thursday). It usually stays in the A-B range.

-metric