Solar and Aurora Activity Chat

[JeffC]

Observed Flux Density 92.3

Adjusted Flux Density 90.5 = low

 

Roof almost fettled!

[Weather-history]

Article from the Guardian of November 4th 1974 on sunspots and crop yields

[JeffC]

Observed Flux Density 99.0

Adjusted Flux Density 97.1 = low

[JeffC]

Observed Flux Density 109.5

Adjusted Flux Density 107.6 = medium

[Uncle_Barty]

Latest update on Cycle 25 progress here.

To summarise, I would still expect a peak a little higher, possibly by as much as 20%, compared with Cycle 24, but some scientists are still predicting something considerably larger, close to average.

[JeffC]

Observed Flux Density 110.9

Adjusted Flux Density 109.0 = medium

[JeffC]

Observed Flux Density 117.8

Adjusted Flux Density 115.8 = medium

[Katrine Basso]

MID-LATITUDE AURORAS: "I am so happy to see the sun getting back in action!" says Ruslan Merzlyakov. "For the second month in a row, I have witnessed beautiful auroras over Limfjord in Denmark (latitude +57N)." This is what he saw Saturday night, March 5th: "The symphony of Lights":

 

[Jo Farrow]

I went to Belhaven Bay on Saturday evening, home of the Bridge to Nowhere. Which was in Hello magazine recently with a beautiful Aurora behind. 

This was just off an iPhone12, there was little to see by eye. Just one of the vertical bands appearing faintly and green. 

Beautiful stars under the clear skies and there were various other people moving about in the darkness towards the bridge. 

Edited March 8, 2022 by Jo Farrow
add Hello pic

[JeffC]

Observed Flux Density 114.7

Adjusted Flux Density 113.1 = medium

[Weather-history]

Graeme Whipps produces wonderful videos

[Katrine Basso]

Sensational sky over Aviemore taken yesterday.

 

[Weather-history]

 

[snoangel]

Hi.  I’m lucky enough to be booked on a flight to (hopefully ) view the aurora on Wednesday night.  Where can I find the latest observations to get an idea if/where the aurora will be visible on 23rd March?

[Katrine Basso]

AURORAS LOVE EQUINOXES: A CME passed near Earth yesterday, March 20th. It didn't hit. But at this time of year a near miss is enough, because auroras love equinoxes. Christopher Mathews witnessed a beautiful display from his backyard in Hraunborg, Iceland:

[JeffC]

Observed Flux Density 96.2

Adjusted Flux Density 95.3 = low

[Weather-history]

Sunspots were clearly visible on the setting sun last evening

 

[Gray-Wolf]

Busy old Sun recently eh?

I get the feeling that this is beginning to look like a far more active cycle than many predicted?

3 more earth directed CME's yesterday alone (expected on the 31st?) & the Earth facing disc peppered with spots?

[Uncle_Barty]

1 hour ago, Gray-Wolf said:

Busy old Sun recently eh?

I get the feeling that this is beginning to look like a far more active cycle than many predicted?

3 more earth directed CME's yesterday alone (expected on the 31st?) & the Earth facing disc peppered with spots?

Still pretty early days and my money at this stage is still on "cycle 24 +10-15%" as a peak, but we'll see. Looking at the same time frame in the last cycle, March 2011 saw solar flux peak at over 150sfu, but mean levels were lower than this time round.

We'd still need a much bigger increase in activity from current mean levels to catch up with even an average cycle at the same stage. This could still happen, of course.

Solar flux last night rose to 156 -  Highest since June 2015. The rolling 27 day average has been over 100sfu since late December now, and the annual mean will be climbing quite steeply as we lose the activity of mostly in the 70s sfu of this time last year.

[summer blizzard]

 

You can see the cycle still resembles the inactive cycles more but that we have seen a faster rise than expected.

This does suggest SC25 may be more active in total (and the following minimum less deep) albeit with a small sample size and lack of satellites it’s difficult to compare. We may just see a quicker peak and then collapse.

[Katrine Basso]

THE SOUTHERN LIGHTS: What should you do when a CME hits Earth's magnetic field? "Get on a plane," says Ian Griffin of the Otago Museum in Dunedin, New Zealand. On April 1, 2022, he joined 270 aurora chasers on a flight toward the Antarctic Circle--and this is what they saw:

[JeffC]

Latest solar radio flux report from DRAO, Penticton

SPACEWEATHER.GC.CA

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HTML version of latest solar radio flux report from DRAO, Penticton

page is stuck on 18th March.......

pa

[Katrine Basso]

CHINESE ROCKET PHOTOBOMBS AURORA: A week-long mystery has just been solved. On Tuesday, March 29th, webcams and sky watchers in the interior of Alaska, witnessed a strange blue ball of light cut across the night sky. "It seemed like it had something that was spinning inside," Fairbanks photographer Leslie Smallwood told local news station KUAC. Physicists at the University of Alaska Fairbanks had no explanation--except it looked gaseous.

[Katrine Basso]

View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Joel Weatherly in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, captured this shot of the aurora borealis on April 10, 2022, during the G3 storm that happened on that night. He wrote: “Last night we were treated to a surprise G3-class geomagnetic storm. During the storm’s peak, auroras arced overhead and gained faint pinkish-red tinges. The bright star near the centre is Vega, a brilliant sight in our springtime skies.”

[Uncle_Barty]

On 04/04/2022 at 15:03, JeffC said:

Latest solar radio flux report from DRAO, Penticton

SPACEWEATHER.GC.CA

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HTML version of latest solar radio flux report from DRAO, Penticton

page is stuck on 18th March.......

pa

Yes, I contacted them, there are issues being worked on. Being updated again now but probably manually as they are not appearing til the following day in the case of the 2200 update.