I keep a close eye on the space weather. There's a bit of aurora activity right now. Not enough to see it as far south as Seattle yet. I thought I'd start this thread and post whenever there is activity.
So, that was a G1 storm, visible north of the US mostly, maybe the 55th parallel. From spaceweather.com A G2 storm is expected. Of course, for whatever reason, predicting space weather is even less reliable that predicting Earth weather so it's never a certainty. A G2 storm will create an aurora that borders on being visible from my living room window in Bellevue, a Seattle burb. Seattle is at Geomagnetic latitude 54 which differs from simple latitude, for reasons I've not taken the time to learn. You can see what your GML is here. Here's the current alert Forgot to decipher that timing. The CME impact is due as soon as 6-7 hours from now or as late as 30 hours from now. X flares travel faster and arrive sooner (24-48 hours from the ejection), M flares a little slower (48-72 hours from the ejection). The incoming flare left the Sun 2013/05/17 08:43 Universal time(Greenwich mean time).
Another CME, another storm in progress right now. If it's dark where you are, and the skies clear, and you are north of the 45th parallel, or the equivalent in the southern hemisphere, step outside and look toward the poles. I'm hoping the storm lasts a few more hours, and the clouds dissipate. But the odds are not forever in my favor.
Time for another bump, a CME from an X-flare directed straight at Earth is on it's way. http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/alerts/warnings_timeline.html http://spaceweather.com/ The Spaceweather site has been having loading issues for a couple days.
My luck with auroras remains low. The smaller CME hit last night. We had beautiful clear skies but the storm wasn't active enough. Then at 10am, the sudden impulse of the X-flare arrived. But if it's a dark clear sky for you at the moment and you are in latitude range, it'a already reached G2. Look outside.
Best time for me to see it is tonight, but there has been heavy fog since I woke at 5.30 this morning, and while it's not quite the pea-souper it was, it's doubtful I'll see much, if anything.
New auroras forecast over the next 48 hours or so. I'm hoping they sync up with the clear night skies the coming arctic blast is supposed to bring us. http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/alerts/warnings_timeline.html
