Category: NOAA

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NOAA-Space Hurricanes


That’s all I’ve got. No solar explosions. SPACE HURRICANES. Read up

A SHADOW IS ABOUT TO FALL ACROSS SATURN: Amateur astronomers, prepare your telescopes. The shadow of Titan is about to fall across Saturn. It looks like this. The transit will occur on Sunday, Aug. 3rd, between 06:25 and 1104 UTC. Submit your photos here. (YELLOW 2 POLARIZING HUMAN in HF 33.)

SPACE HURRICANES ARE REAL: Hurricane season just got worse. Chinese researchers have discovered a new kind of storm at the edge of space. They call it a “space hurricane.”

The first known example appeared in Defense Meteorological Satellite (DMSP) images on Aug. 20, 2014. A massive swirl of charged particles appeared above the North Pole. Spinning silently, it resembled a terrestrial hurricane in shape, with spiral arms and a calm “eye” glowing with auroral light. A detailed study of this event was published in the July 2025 edition of Space Weather.



Above: A ‘ space hurricane’ observed by DMSP satellites. Note the eye and spiral arms.

“The space hurricane formed during very quiet conditions,” says lead author Sheng Lu of Shandong University. “Solar activity was low.”

Most researchers overlooked these events because they weren’t linked to solar storms. This team looked for auroras under calm conditions and found something new. The DMSP F17 satellite flew through the space hurricane’s center; ten minutes later, SWARM B crossed the edge. Their data confirmed that the hurricane was an active electrodynamics storm, not just an auroral display.

The hurricane’s effects mimicked those of actual geomagnetic storms. Using GPS data from the Canadian High Arctic Ionospheric Network, the researchers found that satellite signals passing through the hurricane’s edge experienced strong phase scintillation’s–a type of “twinkling” that can reduce GPS accuracy. Meanwhile, ground-based magnetometers in Greenland recorded sharp shifts in Earth’s magnetic field as large as 400 nT–comparable to a G1-class geomagnetic storm.

Above: The anatomy of a space hurricane. Credit: Lu et al (2025) [Expand]
Savvy aurora chasers know that the best time to catch Northern Lights is when the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) tilts south. This opens a hole in Earth’s magnetosphere, allowing solar wind to enter. We tend to ignore times when the IMF tilts north and closes the door. Yet that is precisely when space hurricanes form, according to the study.

Space hurricanes are stealthy, appearing when traditional metrics of space weather forecasting indicate little of interest. Note to forecasters: Not all storms come from the sun.

Want to learn more? Read the original research here.

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SUDDEN STRATOSPHERIC WARMING EVENT: NOAA


A major disruption of the polar vortex appears to be underway as the Arctic stratosphere suddenly warms. Researchers call this a “sudden stratospheric warming event.” It’s caused by planetary atmospheric waves crashing into the vortex and breaking it up. Cold air spilling out of the weakened vortex could plunge the USA, Canada, and parts of Europe into bitter cold little more than a week before the arrival of Spring. This also marks the end of polar stratospheric cloud season for Arctic observers.

CIR HITS EARTH, SPARKS AURORAS: If you’ve never heard of a co-rotating interaction region (CIR), just think of it as a mini CME. One hit Earth on March 8th, sparking more than 10 hours of geomagnetic storms. “The auroras in Minnesota were some of the brightest I’ve seen in a while,” reports Anna Eastman, who watched the show from the Agassiz Wildlife Refuge:

CIRs are transition zones between fast – and slow-moving streams of solar wind. They contain magnetic fields and shock waves akin to those of CMEs. While CMEs require some sort of explosion on the sun, CIRs do not. They form gently from the sandwiching of solar wind streams–no solar flare required.

A fast-moving solar wind stream has arrived on the heels of the CIR. This is the same stream that created the CIR in the first place by compressing a region of slower solar wind ahead of it. Blowing 600 km/s, the fast stream could cause additional category G1 (Minor) storms on March 10th. High-latitude sky watchers should remain alert for auroras. Aurora alerts: SMS Text.

The arrival of the CIR on March 8th immediately caused a G1-class (Minor) storm, intensifying to category G2 (Moderate) on March 9th. Sky watchers in Iceland, Canada, and multiple US states from New York to Utah saw the geomagnetic glow.
“Even with a bright Moon, it was a beautiful light show,” she says.

Click on the inset diagram to learn more about CIRs.

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SOLAR MAX IN THE SUN’S SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE-NOAA


Now, there is an organized solar calendar. The sunspot cycle controls Time, and the time harmonic is synced exactly with solar time as galactic time. The Maya were not kidding around.

At the end of October, Turkish astronomer Senol Sanli made a composite image of the month’s sunspots, all 31 days. Take a look. Notice anything? (It’s not always 31)

There are more sunspots in the sun’s southern hemisphere–more than three times as many according to the Solar Influences and Data Analysis Center. This is the 4th month in a row the southern hemisphere has significantly outperformed the north.

(This is due to the binary triplet configuration of time. This is a preponderance of the S. Polar Zone of rhe earth holon, the bottom 5 lines of 13 tones at the bottom of the Tzolkin. They are strong movement in Seed, Night, Wind, Dragon, and Sun tribes which are Valine, Alanine, Glycine, Cysteine, and the Stop Codon in evolving RNA sequence.)

What’s going on? Solar physicists have long known that the two hemispheres of the sun don’t always operate in sync. (They are just dominant at different times based on evolutionary needs on earth)

Solar Max in the north can be offset from Solar Max in the south by as much as two years–a delay known as the “Gnevyshev gap.” The assymetry is illustrated in this graph of hemispheric sunspot numbers from the last 6 solar cycles:


Is the sun’s southern hemisphere experiencing its Solar Max right now? Maybe. We won’t know for sure until years from now when we can look back and see the final shape of Solar Cycle 25. Meanwhile, stay tuned for more southern sunspots.

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Daily Oracle-PROTONS ARE RAINING DOWN ON EARTH


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AURORAS LOVE EQUINOXES


The northern autumnal equinox is only two days away. That’s good news for sky watchers because auroras love equinoxes. Researchers call it the “Russell-McPherron effect.” At this time of year, cracks form in Earth’s magnetic field, opening the door for solar storms. Even a weak stream of solar wind or a glancing blow from a CME can spark a good display. Happy autumn! Aurora alerts: SMS Text

A BRGHT COMET IS APPROACHING EARTH: Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS (C/2023 A3) has just emerged from behind the sun, and its appearance has astronomers buzzing with anticipation. “The comet is brightening rapidly,” says Australian astrophotographer Michael Mattiazzo, who has been monitoring the comet in dawn twilight:


Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS on Sept. 17th in dawn twilight over Swan Hill, Australia

“The comet was only 6 degrees above the horizon when I photographed it on Sept. 17th,” says Mattiazzo. “Using 15x70mm binoculars, I estimated its visual magnitude to be +4.3.”

This is very good news. Some astronomers predicted Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS would fall apart during its transit behind the sun. The fact that it is still intact and healthy means we could witness a bright naked-eye comet next month.

“Prospects remain excellent for a visually impressive evening display in mid-October,” says Qicheng Zhang of the Lowell Observatory. “Weather permitting, the entire Northern Hemisphere should be able to see Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS.”

Nick James of the British Astronomical Association just wrote an article anticipating the bright comet. “It makes its closest approach to Earth on October 12 when it will be 0.47 au away in the constellation of Virgo,” he says. “There is a possibility that the comet will be at a negative magnitude as it emerges into the evening sky from Oct. 10th onwards.”


This light curve from astronomer Bum-Suk Yeom shows a huge spike in the comet’s brightness around Oct. 9-10. [more]

“Negative magnitude” means the comet could be visible in broad daylight, especially on Oct. 9th when light from the nearby sun will be forward scattered by comet dust, amplifying the comet’s brightness. “[Daylight photography of the comet] should only be attempted if you know what you are doing,” cautions James. “The sun will be very close by and this is potentially a very dangerous observation, similar to observing Venus at inferior conjunction.”

It’s been done before, though. Witness Comet McNaught in 2007, which was seen in broad daylight by thousands of observers. Could a repeat display be in the offing? Stay tuned for updates as Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS approaches Earth.

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Severe Geomagnetic Storm


We are at the full moon, and we begin a new HF on Red 8 Skywalker tomorrow.

Spaceweather.com

CME IMPACT SPARKS SEVERE STORM: Arriving about 6 hours later than expected, a CME hit Earth’s magnetic field on Sept. 16th (2341 UT). The impact sparked a G4-class (Severe) geomagnetic storm with auroras sighted as far south as the Texas Panhandle. The storm has subsided, but it’s not over. Storm levels are now fluctuating between G1 (Minor) and G3 (Strong) as Earth moves through the CME’s wake. Aurora alerts: SMS Text

Full moonlight was supposed to spoil the show, but the auroras were bright enough to compete with the Harvest Moon. Paul Robinson sends this picture from Boulder, Colorado:

“Red rays were dimly visible to the unaided eye for about 5 minutes,” says Robinson. “I photographed them using my Samsung S24 phone in night mode.”

Photos are coming in from Europe and many US states. Browse the real time aurora gallery for the latest.

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PARTIAL ECLIPSE OF THE HARVEST MOON: This week’s full Moon is special for several reasons.

(1) It’s the Harvest Moon, the full Moon closest to the autumnal equinox.

(2) It’s a perigee Moon, slightly closer to Earth than usual. And,

(3) It’s going to be partially eclipsed.

This animation created by reader Peter Zimnikoval shows the Moon grazing Earth’s shadow during the early UTC hours of Sept. 18th:

For sky watchers in the Americas, the eclipse occurs on Sept. 17th. Peak coverage occurs at 10:44 p.m. EDT (7:44 p.m. PDT), when a little more than 8 percent of the Moon will be in shadow.

Mainstream media stories are trumpeting this as a “supermoon eclipse.” Indeed, it is a supermoon, or as an astronomer would say, a “perigee Moon.” The Moon’s orbit is an ellipse with one side (“perigee”) about 50,000 km closer than the other (“apogee”). Full Moons that occur on the perigee side of the Moon’s orbit are extra big and bright. This week’s Harvest Moon becomes full within 10 hours of perigee, making it about 5 percent bigger and 13 percent brighter than usual. Is that really “super”? You decide.

Before the days of electric lights, farmers relied on moonlight to harvest ripening autumn crops after sunset. The partial eclipse will briefly dim the glow. Pro tip for farmers: Take your headlamp.

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NOAA-Spaceweather.com for Friday


SUNSPOT NUMBERS AT A 20-YEAR HIGH: For the second month in a row, the monthly-average sunspot number is cruising toward a 20-year high. The current value, around 230, would eclipse every month since Sept. 2001, which occured during the peak of old Solar Cycle 23. The current cycle (Solar Cycle 25) was not supposed to be this strong, and it may become even stronger before Solar Max is finished. Solar flare alerts: SMS Text

AN EXPLOSION OF AURORAS: At first glance, you might think these images have been Photoshopped. They have not. At the stroke on midnight on Aug. 11/12, Canadian photographer Alan Dyer witnessed an explosion of brightly colored auroras:

“The event began with intense reds sweeping in from the east and engulfing the sky,” says Dyer, who recorded the display from Grasslands National Park in southwest Saskatchewan. “The greens followed, mixing with the reds to produce a bouquet of yellows and oranges.” It was over in less than 15 minutes.

Researchers call this an “auroral substorm.” First recognized in the early 1960s by a young Japanese physicist named Shun-ichi Akasofu, substorms have been studied for more than 50 years, yet to this day they are almost entirely unpredictable.

Substorms are caused by explosions in Earth’s magnetic tail. This movie from NASA shows the process in action:

The explosion, caused by magnetic reconnection in the overstretched tail, shoots a beam of energetic electrons and protons directly toward Earth. Auroras mark the broad spot where the particles strike Earth’s atmosphere.

“The substorm was at true midnight when we are looking straight down the magnetotail,” says Dyer. At the time, a strong geomagnetic storm was underway, so Earth’s magnetic tail was being stretched–a lot. It was the perfect setup for a blast.

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SpaceX Spiral Mystery Unveiled: August 2024 Sunspot Surge


SUNSPOT NUMBERS REMAIN HIGH: So far this month, average sunspot numbers are hovering between 200 and 250. If this continues for another 12 days, August 2024 will end up as the spottiest month. It will be the spottiest month in more than 20 years. August 2024 will rival the peak of old Solar Cycle 23. No mainstream forecasters predicted that Solar Cycle 25 (the current cycle) would be so strong. The sun has its own plans. Solar flare alerts: SMS Text

WAITING FOR THE NEXT SPACEX SPIRAL: For more than a year, Zach Goldberg has been wondering what he saw. The aurora photographer was camping in Denali National Park in April 2023. Out of nowhere, a giant blue spiral pinwheeled across the night sky.

“We had no idea what it was,” says Goldberg. “Fortunately, we already had our cameras out for the auroras.” This is what he saw:

Mystery solved: It was a “SpaceX spiral.” On April 15, 2023, SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base. It carried 51 small satellites to Earth-orbit, a mission known as Transporter-7. When the rocket’s discarded upper stage passed over Alaska, it vented its unused fuel.

Spirals are a common side-effect of Transporter ride share missions. Within these Falcon 9 rockets, satellites from various clients have different destinations. SpaceX must rotate the rocket’s second stage for deployment. The de-orbit burn and fuel dump naturally spirals.

Another spiral appeared on March 5, 2024, when Transporter-10 deployed 53 satellites:

“I caught this in Akureyri, Iceland, around 1 a.m. local time,” says photographer Shang Yang. “It looked otherworldly against the Northern Lights!”

When will it happen again? Possibly in two months. The Transporter-12 mission is currently scheduled for October 2024. It could dump its fuel into a northern autumn sky filled with equinox auroras and Orionid meteors. Arctic photographers are encouraged to monitor the launch schedule and submit your images here.

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I just posted the article on X.com


I analyzed the paper in the NOAA link I posted on solar flaring. It’s in very close synchronicity with the Harmonic so I spelled it out. I’m a Content Creator on the platform.

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Activating Intelligence that asks questions serves the community


Meditation Mantras

I dissolve in order to target. Releasing awareness I seal the input of flowering with the spectral tone of liberation. I am guided by my own power doubled.

Kin 24-Yellow 11 Spectral Seed (Jeff Bezos)

NOAA-The Feds

GEOMAGNETIC STORM WATCH (G2): A halo CME is heading for Earth. NOAA’s forecast model predicts it will arrive during the early hours of July 24th (around 0200 UT), potentially sparking a G2-class geomagnetic storm. If that forecast is correct, the storm could produce photographic auroras over northern-tier US states during the night of July 23/24 in North American time zones. Aurora alerts: SMS Text

FARSIDE CME PEPPERS EARTH WITH HARD PROTONS: Something just exploded on the farside of the sun–and it managed to touch Earth. Debris from the blast emerged in the form of a full halo CME, shown here in a movie from the Solar and Helospheric Observatory (SOHO):

Shock waves at the leading edge of the CME are accelerating protons (+) and spraying them throughout the solar system. Some of those protons are raining down on Earth right now. NOAA’s GOES-18 satellite is monitoring an intensifying S1-class solar radiation storm rich in “hard protons” with energies > 100 MeV.

Hard protons are good at charging spacecraft bodies, fogging their cameras, and causing reboots of onboard computers. Indeed, you can see a hint of the “fog” in the SOHO movie above. Each speckle is a hard proton striking the spacecraft’s digital camera.

Europe’s Solar Orbiter (SolO) spacecraft is going to get good data on this event. A NASA model of the CME predicts that it will directly hit SolO on July 24th. Stay tuned for updates from the spacecraft’s energetic particle detectors. Proton storm alerts: SMS Text

Harmonic perspective.

We just left the (+) Zone of Transformation in the Harmonic and today we enter (-) South Polar Zone for 5 days. This could be a BALANCING ACT on the part of Time which is the purpose of time. It seeks to balance manifestation (us and all life) with the ways of the universe.

A proton storm is triggered by a huge burst of gas that erupts from the Sun and escapes into space (a coronal mass ejection). The burst hits protons in the solar wind ahead of it, accelerating them to very high energies and sending them racing along interplanetary magnetic field lines.Feb 11, 2016

How does a geomagnetic storm affect humans?

It should be noted, that during strong geomagnetic disturbances, the tolerance to mental and physical stresses is decreased; there appears a danger of disorders for the people whose professional work is connected to high-level responsibility, like surgeons, dispatchers, drivers, pilots, etc.

Redalyc.Geomagnetic Storms and their Influence on the Human Brain …

SR from Tomsk University

Tone 3~11 pulse is Q2~A2

Astronomy

In the Harmonic, 3 Saturn, Pluto, Mars, and 11 Asteroid Belt Maldek as Red 11 Serpent are pulsing in Time.

We are mediated by Saturn in time. With Saturn in Pisces one might feel the pull to reflect on and even to experience oneness with the divine. Subconscious fears and anxieties will be forthcoming and this is an excellent time to release them; possibly through therapy and time spent in solitude or deep self-analysis. It’s also a good time to create structure around imaginative pursuits.

  • Today, under the influence of Venus forming a sesquiquadrate aspect with Neptune, it’s all too easy to believe what we want to believe. While glossing over the more realistic points, details, and flaws of circumstances and people might feel good at the moment, it’s best to hold off on making important purchases or relationship decisions until the veil lifts. (This is a superficial aspect; illusory)
  • However, Venus aligns with Vesta later today, making it easier to direct our energies into meaningful activities. This alignment encourages us to conserve our energy for what we love doing, stimulating our desire to devote, dedicate, and commit to a task, relationship, or person.
  • Our antipode challenge in time is 3 White Worldbridger mediated by Mars. Yellow 3 Sun is our Guide Power mediated by Pluto. The Sun’s parallel to Mars strengthens our resolve and quickens our reactions. This empowerment helps us make decisive moves. (This aspect is in high sync with TIME.)
  • The Moon continues its transit of Aquarius until 9:24 AM EDT, when it heads into Pisces. The Moon is void from 5:59 AM EDT, with the Moon’s last aspect before changing signs (an opposition to Mercury), until the Moon enters Pisces at 9:24 AM EDT.
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SUPERSTORM TRIGGERED A MASS MIGRATION OF SpaceX Starlink SATELLITES


Spaceweather.com

GEOMAGNETIC STORM WATCH (G1): NOAA forecasters say that minor G1-class geomagnetic storms are possible on July 13-14 when a stream of solar wind is expected to hit Earth’s magnetic field. The gaseous material is flowing from a northern hole in the sun’s atmosphere. Aurora alerts: SMS Text

I support the existence of SpaceX and Starlink and most of the work Elon does. But I advocate for balance, restraint, and cooperation, which sometimes gets lost in the mix. Que Cera Cera!

SUPERSTORM TRIGGERED A MASS MIGRATION OF SATELLITES: Earth just experienced the biggest mass migration of satellites in history. On May 10, 2024, approximately 5000 spacecraft had to maneuver to maintain altitude, resisting a geomagnetic storm that was trying to pull them down. The event is described in a research paper just accepted by the Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets.

This was the post on my blog that day. Complete synchronicity.

“Just bc you’ve never seen it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”-Charlie in “The Santa Clause”-Friday, 5/10/24

And this one…https://timeisdna.com/2024/05/10/the-resonant-7-organization-of-our-grand-universe/

Thus, the Sun and Earth are the boss, not man-made tech, which I keep saying on the platform, but it falls on deaf ears.


Above: Black–number of maneuvering satellites; Blue–intensity of the storm

“Most were SpaceX Starlink satellites,” says William Parker of MIT, the paper’s lead author. “Each satellite has a GNSS receiver as well as autonomous station-keeping and collision-avoidance capabilities. When they sensed the effects of the storm, thousands of the satellites made the decision to maneuver.”

The need to migrate upward was caused by a sudden increase in satellite drag. Earth’s atmosphere absorbed a huge amount of energy from the solar storm, causing it to puff up like a marshmallow held over a campfire. Tendrils of heated air reached into space and started dragging the satellites down.

“The superstorm’s peak power was 2.63 TeraWatts,” says Martin Mlynczak, who retired from NASA’s Langley Research Center a month after the storm. Before he left, he used infrared data from NASA’s TIMED spacecraft to estimate the amount of thermal energy dumped into the upper atmosphere. “It deposited enough energy to run my house for 10 million years (I average about 510 kWh per month),” he says.

Earth’s atmosphere has been heated this much before, most recently during the Halloween storms of 2003. In those days, however, the satellite population was relatively low (fewer than 1000) and there was no mass migration.


Above: Number of payloads launched to Earth orbit per year.

“The May 2024 geomagnetic storm was the first major storm to occur during a new paradigm in low Earth orbit satellite operations dominated by commercial small satellites,” the authors wrote in their paper.

Thanks mainly to the advent of Starlink in 2019, Earth now has almost 10,000 active satellites–ten times the number in 2003. When a fraction of them unexpectedly decide to change course all at once, satellite operators must scramble to track them, making sure they don’t collide. This creates a new and unprecedented risk for all satellites, even ones that don’t move.

It’s a problem that will only get worse in the years ahead. “Major storms are more likely throughout 2024-2025 during the peak of Solar Cycle 25,” says Parker, “and the satellite population continues to grow.”

(IMO, Elon needs to curb the number of satellites he sends up, but he doesn’t listen to me. I thought I was willful, which I am. We need a new word for willful with him.-L.T.)

Want to learn more? Read the original research here.

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A NEW SOURCE OF FLARES


Spaceweather.com

Growing sunspot AR3719 exploded on June 20th, producing a brief but intense M5.7-class solar flare. Radiation from the flare caused a 15-minute shortwave radio blackout over Hawaii. This sunspot was not expected to be very active, but now we know it adds to the chance of flares from behemoth sunspots AR3712 and 13. More on these below…

TWO VERY LARGE SUNSPOTS: Sunspots AR3712 and 13 are so large, they’re altering the sunrise. “The two sunspots were easy to see as the sun rose in morning haze over Gulf Shores, Alabama,” reports David J Kriegler, who took this picture at daybreak on June 20th:

Separately, each of these sunspots is about half as big as the great Carrington sunspot of 1859. Even half of a Carrington Event would be a historic solar storm, which is why we’re carefully monitoring the two active regions. Both have ‘beta-gamma-delta’ magnetic fields that harbor energy for strong X-class flares. Stay tuned. Solar flare alerts: SMS Text

more images: from David E. Johnson of Joliet, Illinois; from Juan Manuel Perez Rayego of Merida, Spain

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THE HIGHEST SUNSPOT NUMBER IN 22 YEARS


Spaceweather.com

The average sunspot number for May 2024 was 172, the highest value in 22 years. So far, June is even higher at 200. If this continues for the rest of the month, June could log the highest sunspot counts since Dec. 2001, rivaling the peak of potent Solar Cycle 23. Solar flare alerts: SMS Text

THE LASER-LIKE ANTI-TAIL OF COMET 12P: Today, Earth is passing through the orbital plane of comet 12P/Pons-Brooks. “This is causing it to develop a laser-like anti-tail,” reports astronomer Ian Griffin, who sends this photo from Otago, New Zealand:

“It was an amazing display,” says Griffin.

In Griffin’s photo, the anti-tail is the very sharp line pointing toward the upper right. It’s “anti” because it points directly opposite the comet’s regular gas tail (lower left).

What is this anti-tail? It’s an optical illusion. Anti-tails appear when Earth passes through a comet’s orbital plane. During the crossing, the sharp edge of the comet’s fan-shaped dust tail narrows to a laser-like line and appears to point toward the sun.

This phenomenon will be visible for the next few days. Southern hemisphere astronomers can find the comet in the constellation Lepus ~20 degrees below the celestial equator. With a magnitude of +7, the comet is an easy target for amateur telescopes. Submit your photos here.

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YET ANOTHER X-FLARE: Sunspot AR3664


From NOAA-Spaceweather.com

GEOMAGNETIC STORM WATCH–CONTINUED: NOAA forecasters remain confident that a CME will graze Earth’s magnetic field on June 1st. It was hurled into space by an X1.4-flare on May 29th. The glancing blow could cause G2-class geomagnetic storms. CME impact alerts: SMS Text

YET ANOTHER X-FLARE: Sunspot AR3664 (a.k.a. AR3697) has decayed, but it is still potent. On May 31st it emitted another X-flare (X1.1), the third this week. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured the extreme ultraviolet flash:

Radiation from the flare ionized the top of Earth’s atmosphere, briefly causing a shortwave radio blackout over the Pacific side of North America. Signals below 30 MHz faded for as much as 30 minutes after the flare’s peak (May 31st @ 2203 UT).

The flare, while intense, was too brief to lift a significant CME out of the sun’s atmosphere. SOHO coronagraph images show no solar storm clouds heading for Earth.

What makes a decaying sunspot like AR3664 so active? This magnetic map provides the answer:

Within the sunspot’s primary core, two oppositely-signed magnetic poles are crowded together, + vs. -. (Just like the Tzolkin Harmonic and our DNA-same thing) When this happens, magnetic recombination (Tone 1 in the magnetosphere QFactor Layer) can cause very powerful explosions even from a sunspot that’s falling apart. NOAA forecasters estimate a 35% chance of X-flares and a 75% chance of M-flares on June 1st. Solar flare alerts: SMS Text

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SPACE WEATHER BALLOON DATA: Almost once a week, Spaceweather.com and the students of Earth to Sky Calculus fly space weather balloons to the stratosphere over California. These balloons are equipped with sensors that detect secondary cosmic rays, a form of radiation from space that can penetrate all the way down to Earth’s surface. Our monitoring program has been underway without interruption for 7 years, resulting in a unique dataset of in situ atmospheric measurements.

Latest results (July 2022): Atmospheric radiation is decreasing in 2022. Our latest measurements in July 2022 registered a 6-year low:

What’s going on? Ironically, the radiation drop is caused by increasing solar activity. Solar Cycle 25 has roared to life faster than forecasters expected. The sun’s strengthening and increasingly tangled magnetic field repels cosmic rays from deep space. In addition, solar coronal mass ejections (CMEs) sweep aside cosmic rays, causing sharp reductions called “Forbush Decreases.” The two effects blend together to bring daily radiation levels down.

.Who cares? Cosmic rays are a surprisingly “down to Earth” form of space weather. They can alter the chemistry of the atmosphere, trigger lightning, and penetrate commercial airplanes. According to a study from the Harvard T.H. Chan school of public health, crews of aircraft have higher rates of cancer than the general population. The researchers listed cosmic rays, irregular sleep habits, and chemical contaminants as leading risk factors. A number of controversial studies (#1, #2, #3, #4) go even further, linking cosmic rays with cardiac arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death.

(So when you see reports saying that solar activity and the hertz ELM levels in the magnetosphere won’t affect you physically, they are lying. NASA I think, says they don’t. NOAA is not the same as NASA. They work together but basically, NASA is the Feds and they keep secrets from humanity big time. NOAA doesn’t.)

Technical notes: The radiation sensors onboard our helium balloons detect X-rays and gamma-rays in the energy range 10 keV to 20 MeV. These energies span the range of medical X-ray machines and airport security scanners.

Data points in the graph labeled “Stratospheric Radiation” correspond to the peak of the Regener-Pfotzer maximum, which lies about 67,000 feet above central California. When cosmic rays crash into Earth’s atmosphere, they produce a spray of secondary particles that is most intense at the entrance to the stratosphere. Physicists Eric Regener and Georg Pfotzer discovered the maximum using balloons in the 1930s and it is what we are measuring today.

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ROCKS AND SOIL ELECTRIFIED BY THE SUPER STORM


That means all life on the surface was affected by the sun, it stands to reason. This is a no-brainer. Unless you don’t consider yourself alive, even though you are. Humans are electromagnetic inherently.-L.T.

(In my office, my QI pen won’t operate unless I have my hand on the patient’s body while holding the pen. That proves it. We all have natural electromagnetism in our bodies, give it off and draw it in when it’s rife in the ambient air around us as it was during the solar storm.)

NOAA Spaceweather.com

Across the USA on May 10th and 11th, sky watchers marveled at bright displays of aurora borealis during the biggest geomagnetic storm in decades. Little did they know, something was also happening underfoot. (Not just underfoot. Why would it just be underfoot?)

Strong electrical currents were surging through rocks and soil (all life if you bother to check). The biggest voltages along the US eastern seaboard and in the Midwest were as much as 10,000 times normal. A map from NOAA and the US Geological Survey shows some of the ‘hot spots’ during the early hours of May 11th:

Back in March 1989, voltages only a little stronger than the ones shown above brought down the entire Hydro-Québec power system. The resulting Great Québec Blackout plunged millions of Canadians into darkness.

This time, however, power grids stayed up. “We haven’t heard of any serious problems so far,” reports Christopher Balch of NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center.

Balch leads an effort at NOAA to model geoelectric fields during solar storms. The map, above, is a snapshot from a real-time display that takes into account the 3D conductivity of the Earth and ongoing geomagnetic activity. A computer at the Space Weather Prediction Center crunches the data to produce minute-by-minute estimates of electricity in the ground.

“I started working on this in 2011 after a NOAA Space Weather Workshop where representatives from the power industry asked for a geoelectric field model,” recalls Balch. “It’s a collaboration between NOAA, the US Geological Survey and others; we now have a version that covers much of Canada and the United States.”


A power blackout (left) and transformer damage (right) during the March 1989 storm.

When researchers talk about geoelectric fields they use units of volts per km (V/km). Earth’s crust naturally contains quiet-time fields measuring as little as 0.01 V/km. During geomagnetic storms, these values skyrocket.

“On May 10-11, geoelectric amplitudes exceeded 10 V/km in Virginia and 9 V/km in the upper Midwest,” says Jeffrey Love, a key member of the collaboration at the USGS. “These are very high. For comparison, we estimate that geoelectric amplitudes reached almost 22 V/km in Virginia during the March 1989 storm.”

This means the May 2024 storm was, electrically speaking, about half as intense as the storm that blacked out Québec 35 years ago. That’s too close for comfort. “Although power companies have taken measures to improve the resilience of their systems, no one would welcome another storm as intense as that of March 1989,” says Love.

Real time electric field maps are published 24/7 on the NOAA website. During the next geomagnetic storm, click here to see what’s happening underfoot!

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Auroras confirm a top 500-year storm just occurred


The last 12 days were truly epic as far as time change, all initiated by the solar eclipse last month. The sun is going berserk to be sure, and I’m very happy about it and tracking for you. Kudos to NASA AND NOAA, who I feel are my buddies now. I’m watching all the work they are doing daily and love it.

AURORAS IN COLORADO YESTERDAY: A CME hit Earth’s magnetic field on May 16th (0620 UT), sparking a moderate G2-class geomagnetic field. Aaron Watson witnessed the red afterglow of the CME’s impact from Colorado! The storm subsided a few hours after it began, and is over now. Aurora alerts: SMS Text

RARE SOUTH PACIFIC AURORAS CONFIRM ‘GREAT STORM’: On the south Pacific island of New Caledonia, no one expects to see auroras. Ever. Situated about halfway between Tonga and Australia, the cigar-shaped island is too close to the equator for Northern or Southern Lights. Yet on May 10, 2024, this happened:

“I have rarely been so happy when taking a photo!” says Frédéric Desmoulins, who photographed the display from Boulouparis in the island’s south province. “I could see the red color of the auroras with my naked eye. According to the New Caledonian Astronomy Society, these photos are the first for this territory.”

“The auroral visibility from New Caledonia is really unique and extremely valuable,” says Hisashi Hayakawa, a space weather researcher at Japan’s Nagoya University. “As far as we know, the last time sky watchers saw auroras in the area was during the Carrington Event of Sept. 1859, when auroras were sighted from a ship in the Coral Sea.”

Hayakawa specializes in historical studies of great auroral storms. He tries to go back in time as far as possible. The problem is, magnetometers and modern sensors didn’t exist hundreds or thousands of years ago. Instead, he looks for records of aurora sightings in old newspapers, diaries, ships logs, even cuneiform tablets. Great Storms are identified by their low latitude–anything with naked-eye auroras below 30° MLAT (magnetic latitude).

“May 10th was definitely a Great Storm,” declares Hayakawa. “Naked-eye auroras sightings in New Caledonia (MLAT = -26.4°) and Puerto Rico (MLAT = 27.2°) confirm this in both hemispheres.”


Note: This is a figure modified from Hayakawa et al. (2024).

In fact, it is among the top 20 Great Storms of the past 500 years. The above timeline from a research paper by Hayakawa has been modified to display the May 10th event. It is the green dot on the far-right end of the timeline.

This isn’t just an arcane historical curiosity. “We need to know about Great Storms of the past to understand how big storms might become today,” explains Hayakawa. “Our modern technological society depends upon it.”

Readers, if you witnessed auroras at low latitudes on May 10th, please submit your photos to our gallery and fill out this questionnaire from Hayakawa. Your observations may be included in a future research paper about this extreme storm.

Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery
Free: Spaceweather.com Newsletter

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NOAA Spaceweather for Saturday


THESE RED LIGHTS ARE NOT AURORAS: Last Sunday, March 3rd, a CME hit Earth’s magnetic field. The surprisingly strong impact sparked a G2-class geomagnetic storm with bright auroras around the Arctic Circle. Upon closer inspection, however, not all of those lights were auroras. Some were “SAR arcs”:

During the storm, Märt Varatu photographed this red ‘bow over Kiia küla, Estonia. “It was a strong SAR arc,” he says.

SARs were discovered in 1956 at the beginning of the Space Age. Researchers didn’t know what they were and unwittingly gave them a misleading name: “Stable Auroral Red arcs” or SARs. In fact, they are not auroras.

Auroras appear when charged particles rain down from space, hitting the atmosphere and causing it to glow like the picture tube of an old color TV. SARs form differently. They are a sign of heat energy leaking into the upper atmosphere from Earth’s ring current system, a donut-shaped circuit carrying millions of amps around our planet. During the geomagnetic storm of March 3rd, this ring current sprang a significant leak. (That is the AMPLITUDE layer of the ScR. It could be supporting the C1 Cosmic layer to appear that pluses with Tone13.-LT)

The same red arcs were widely observed from Latvia to eastern Russia. Vladimir Nerush photographed this fragment just east of Moscow:

“It emerged from the trees and passed right by the Pleiades,” says Nerush. “The red color was so pure.”

Indeed, SAR arcs are among the reddest things in the sky, with a monochromatic glow at 6300 Å that comes from atomic oxygen in the upper atmosphere. The human eye is relatively insensitive to light at this wavelength; we have a hard time seeing SAR arcs. Cameras catch them easily, though. Pro tip for photographers: Use a 6300 Å filter.

more images: from Juris Seņņikovs of Dobele, Latvia; from Ilgonis Vilks of Jurmala, Latvia

This was Nov. 8, 2023-same thing

Earth’s Ring Current System Just Sprang a Leak

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Spaceweather.com


MAJOR X-CLASS SOLAR FLARE: The sun produced a major X3.4-class solar flare today, Feb. 9th (1314 UT). Surprisingly, it did not come from the big “Martian sunspot,” described below. Instead the source was located just behind the sun’s southwestern limb. That means the partially eclipsed flare was even bigger than its nominal X3.4 rating. Earth just dodged a bullet. Stay tuned for updates. CME impact alerts: SMS Text

THE “MARTIAN SUNSPOT” IS FACING EARTH: A sunspot big enough to see from Mars is now turning to face Earth. NASA’s Perseverance rover on Mars first noticed the sprawling sunspot group last week, photographing it using the rover’s MASTCAM. It was a behemoth then, and it has only grown bigger since. Here’s how AR3576 looked Wednesday from Argentina:

“The view was fantastic,” says Eduardo Schaberger Poupeau, who photographed the sunspot using a solar-filtered telescope in the town of Rafaela. “AR3576 appeared as a large archipelago containing a multitude of dark cores.”

In fact, the sunspot is even bigger than the picture suggests. There’s more of it visible in Poupeau’s full frame image. From end to end, the sunspot group stretches more than 150,000 km with at least 4 dark cores larger than Earth. You can see it using ISO-approved eclipse glasses–no magnification required.

AR3576 is big, yes, but of even greater interest is the sunspot’s magnetic complexity. This magnetic map from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory shows a mixture of polarities in the sunspot’s core:

In the circled region, positive and negative magnetic polarities are so closely packed that you may need to look at this unlabeled map to see them clearly. Opposite polarities bumping together can cause explosive magnetic reconnection. Indeed, NOAA forecasters say this sunspot poses a threat for strong X-class solar flares–and Earth is directly in the line of fire. Stay tuned. Solar flare alerts: SMS Text

Lisa’s addition.

This astronomical sunspot made known to us by NOAA is in exact sync with the spacetime lineup from the harmonic, which I just posted. There is some volatile energy being released today, STIMULATED BY THE SUN AND PLANETS. 🌞

We last saw Pluto mediated Blue Storm 3 days ago. We can see both today’s Yellow Human and Red Moon and the antipode Pluto mediated Blue Storm. There is Uranus as the Guide Power. This gateway stimulated the activity through the force of time.

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Spaceweather.com. Big Blast Coming for the next two days.


These big solar winds change our bodies, brains, the earth, and time.

GEOMAGNETIC STORM WATCH (G2): Earth’s magnetic field is about to receive a double blow. First, on Dec. 4th, a high-speed stream of solar wind flowing from a coronal hole will arrive. Then, on Dec. 5th, an off-target CME could deliver a glancing blow. Their combined effect is expected to cause G1 (Minor) to G2-class (Moderate) geomagnetic storms with photographic auroras at mid-latitudes. Aurora alerts: SMS Text

A HOLE IN THE SUN’S ATMOSPHERE: A huge hole has opened in the sun’s atmosphere, and it spewing a stream of solar wind directly toward Earth. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory photographed the structure, which stretches almost 800,00 km along its long axis:

This is a coronal hole–a region in the sun’s atmosphere where magnetic fields have opened up, allowing solar wind to escape. The hole looks dark because hot glowing gas normally contained there is missing. The gaseous material is on its way to Earth.

The solar wind is due to arrive Dec. 4th or 5th. Together with a glancing-blow CME, also en route, it could spark G1 (Minor) to G2-class (Moderate) geomagnetic storms. Aurora alerts: SMS Text

Cosmic Rays in the Atmosphere

SPACE WEATHER BALLOON DATA: Almost once a week, Spaceweather.com and the students of Earth to Sky Calculus fly space weather balloons to the stratosphere over California. These balloons are equipped with sensors that detect secondary cosmic rays, a form of radiation from space that can penetrate all the way down to Earth’s surface. Our monitoring program has been underway without interruption for 7 years, resulting in a unique dataset of in situ atmospheric measurements.

Latest results (July 2022): Atmospheric radiation is decreasing in 2022. Our latest measurements in July 2022 registered a 6-year low:

What’s going on? Ironically, the radiation drop is caused by increasing solar activity. Solar Cycle 25 has roared to life faster than forecasters expected. The sun’s strengthening and increasingly tangled magnetic field repels cosmic rays from deep space. In addition, solar coronal mass ejections (CMEs) sweep aside cosmic rays, causing sharp reductions called “Forbush Decreases.” The two effects blend together to bring daily radiation levels down.

Who cares? Cosmic rays are a surprisingly “down to Earth” form of space weather. They can alter the chemistry of the atmosphere, trigger lightning, and penetrate commercial airplanes. According to a study from the Harvard T.H. Chan school of public health, crews of aircraft have higher rates of cancer than the general population. The researchers listed cosmic rays, irregular sleep habits, and chemical contaminants as leading risk factors. A number of controversial studies (#1, #2, #3, #4) go even further, linking cosmic rays with cardiac arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death.

Technical notes: The radiation sensors onboard our helium balloons detect X-rays and gamma-rays in the energy range 10 keV to 20 MeV. These energies span the range of medical X-ray machines and airport security scanners.

Data points in the graph labeled “Stratospheric Radiation” correspond to the peak of the Regener-Pfotzer maximum, which lies about 67,000 feet above central California. When cosmic rays crash into Earth’s atmosphere, they produce a spray of secondary particles that is most intense at the entrance to the stratosphere. Physicists Eric Regener and Georg Pfotzer discovered the maximum using balloons in the 1930s and it is what we are measuring today.

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Spaceweather.com for 10Earth on Tuesday


This hit on Red 10 Planetary Earth mediated by Uranus

NOAA

A PURE SIGN WAVE IN THE MAGNETOSPHERE: In a quiet room, you can hear a pin drop. Norwegian citizen scientist Rob Stammes just heard a pin drop on Earth’s magnetic field.

“It was very quiet when it happened,” says Stammes, who runs a space weather observatory in Lofoten, Norway. On Oct. 17th, his magnetometer was monitoring Earth’s magnetic field as it does every night, and the instrument’s needle had settled itself into a straight line, indicating very low geomagnetic activity.  Suddenly, Earth’s magnetic field began to ring.

Planetary tone 10. 10 periods.

“A very stable ~25 second magnetic oscillation appeared in my recordings, and lasted for more than 20 minutes,” he says. “It was fantastic to see the magnetic field swing back and forth by about 0.1 degrees, peak to peak.”

This kind of pure tone is rare, but it has happened before. Researchers call it a “pulsation continuous” — or “Pc” for short. Pc waves are classified into 5 types depending on their period. The waves Stammes caught fall into category Pc3.

The “pin dropping” was a gentle gust of solar wind. Imagine blowing across a piece of paper, making it flutter with your breath. The solar wind can have a similar effect Earth’s magnetic field. Pc3 waves are essentially flutters propagating down the flanks of our planet’s magnetosphere excited by the breath of the sun.


A NASA animation of waves fluttering down the sides of Earth’s magnetosphere [more]

Stammes is a longtime observer of Pc waves. Usually he catches them during Solar Minimum when “the room is quiet” for months at a time. “Recording one now so close to Solar Max is unexpected,” he says. “Lately, my magnetometer traces have been too noisy for such delicate waves–so it came a surprise!”

Pc3 waves, which can only be heard in moments of quiet, can also bring the quiet to an end. The oscillations sometimes flow all the way around Earth’s magnetic field and cause a “tearing instability” in our planet’s magnetic tail. This, in turn, sets the stage for magnetic reconnection and geomagnetic storms.

That didn’t happen on Oct. 17th, though. The pin dropped, the magnetosphere rang, and quiet resumed. Stammes is already listening for more. Stay tuned!