Solar storm headed for Earth, will hit tomorrow

Friday, the Sun exploded with energy from its largest sunspot in years, launching a coronal mass ejection (CME) into space and towards Earth. The wave of charged particles from the Sun is now expected to impact Earth's upper atmosphere sometime tomorrow, which can have both positive and negative results for us here on Earth

www.examiner.com...

Well no gloom and doom really peeps.I dont think anything bad is going to happen. Just wanted to share it so those living the right latitudes might get a change to see some lights. Use to get them where I live in the Western Isles. But have not seen a good show in ages. Could be a good show too. Its a large sunspot...

reply to post by purplemer


Is this the same sun spot that is noticeable with the naked eye?

I didn't see it in the article.

This might not be anything work worrying over, maybe a few electric systems will go down... hopefully that is all.

The thing I think we'll see during the next day will be people eluding to this with a connection to the predicted quakes in the cascadia fault region. We'll hear about how this kind of solar activity can affect the tectonic plate activity.

reply to post by purplemer


Not sure why this has even made news to be honest...

Despite the threat of M class flares, this sunspot has only produced C class flares.

www.swpc.noaa.gov...

Originally posted by purplemer

Friday, the Sun exploded with energy from its largest sunspot in years

Maybe the reporter at the examiner has to justify his job, and hypes it up needlessly in order to make it sound more exciting than it really is.

CME Type O, not particularly fast, not particularly strong, not particularly aimed at earth.

The roughly estimated expected range of the Kp index is 2-4 (minor).

gsfc

The geomagnetic field is expected to be at quiet to unsettled levels with a chance for active periods on day one (14 May), as a CME, observed leaving the solar disk on 12 May, is forecasted to become geoeffective.
Most of the mass of this CME event is expected to miss Earth,

noaa

reply to post by Chadwickus


How close is that data produced to Earth? I'm not familiar with the technology, is this something they are observing from a faraway distance, or is it something they can only produce as it nears Earth?

reply to post by wishful1gnorance


It's realtime data, not sure of exact location though.

Here's the link to the 1 minute data stream:

www.swpc.noaa.gov...

reply to post by purplemer


Thanks for the heads up.
I don't think this one is anything to worry about.

Love the picture!

hmmm in the news because could cause ..

"small magnetic storm"?

it could reach us in the day on May 15, 2012, causing a small magnetic storm and some northern lights. U.S. sites spaceweather.com, noaa.gov (swpc.noaa.gov), nasa.gov (nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth), and the French sites Infos DX (infosdx.ref-union.org), suivi-soleil.com, Météo Vars (meteo16-vars.com/wxspace.php), among others, will provide further more detailed information.

Originally posted by wishful1gnorance
reply to post by purplemer

 

This might not be anything work worrying over, maybe a few electric systems will go down... hopefully that is all.

LOL would probably only effect TomTom GPS satellites again

Originally posted by wishful1gnorance
How close is that data produced to Earth? I'm not familiar with the technology, is this something they are observing from a faraway distance, or is it something they can only produce as it nears Earth?

As I understand it, the sun is observed from a few directions...

- the STEREO satellites can see the sun from "ahead" and "behind" the earth's orbit.
- the SOHO satellite is between the earth and the sun, in the direction of the sun, cleverly placed at Lagrange point 1, about 932000 miles from Earth and toward the Sun.
- the SDO satellite is in orbit around the earth.



When a CME occurs, the direction of it, and the speed can be estimated rather well.
This is fine tuned when it his the SOHO satellite (before it hits earth)
And of course the SDO and other detectors on earth register the actual arrival time, and various people update the computer models to do better next time.

reply to post by purplemer


"Prediction":

"Solar storm headed for Earth, will hit tomorrow".

Made sometime "late Sunday evening, EARLY Monday morning, Pacific Daylight Time (per the ATS "time hacks" noted on thread posts).

(AT, specifically, 03:39 PDT......this is the same as 10:39 UTC ...or, otherwise known as 'GMT').....

I am writing this post, for the record at about 04:40 PDT May 14.... (hey!! Was "Mother's Day", on Sunday, 13 May, here in the USA!!!.... lol )....

So.....knowing that only ONE-HALF (approximately) of the Globe of the Earth is "aimed" at the Sun, at any 'given' hour....and presuming any "duration" of a "Solar Event".....

....IFI (or anyone else) were to check back to this thread after....OH, let's say, THREE more revolutions of this planet...or 72 hours (just to give the "benefit of the doubt") and NOTHING has occurred??

What, then?? (...should we think...) about the premise?

The meteorologist on the local Buffalo, NY news station talked about this CME last week during the weather brief. He was telling people that it had the potential to disrupt comsat communications and possibly affect GPS tracking (and for some reason he mentioned the CME that happened in the 1850's or 60's that fried telegraph lines). Is this still a possibility, or has the data changed since then?


-TS

Originally posted by truthseeker1984
The meteorologist on the local Buffalo, NY news station talked about this CME last week during the weather brief. He was telling people that it had the potential to disrupt comsat communications and possibly affect GPS tracking (and for some reason he mentioned the CME that happened in the 1850's or 60's that fried telegraph lines). Is this still a possibility, or has the data changed since then?


-TS

It would take a very large and energetic CME to produce effects like they had been seen in the 1850s. This was just a small one and not even going to hit earth head on anyways. This one will not effect anything that we use in our everyday lives. The largest sunspot on the disk currently has the capability of producing X-Class flares but has yet to do so. This one probably won't even give bright auroras except in a few high lattitude locations,

Originally posted by Chadwickus
reply to post by purplemer

 

Not sure why this has even made news to be honest...

Despite the threat of M class flares, this sunspot has only produced C class flares.

www.swpc.noaa.gov...

Does that mean we will not get much in the way of northern lights from it...?

reply to post by ProudBird


I am just hoping to see some northern lights. Thats why I posted it up. So anyone else in the right places will no to look to. I dont think its going to create any problems. Maybe just some lights if we are lucky.

reply to post by alfa1


THanks for the Info

reply to post by purplemer


thanks for sharing this purplemer..! you're the bestest ever...!

will be out watching for them tonight - hopefully the sky clears and we'll see a good show

reply to post by fluff007


Fluff you are the bestest ever too... Lets hope we see the lights tonight. Not looking too good atm.. The sky is overcast here..

Maybe they just want us to look up.

Are the magicians directing our gaze so that we miss something happening somewhere else?

They have all these theories about what this and that is going to cause...In all truthfulness, it's all scientific conjecture. They don't know. Why? Simply because there is nothing in our historical records to compare it to. That's why I laugh at the doom and gloomers who take all of these prognostications to heart.

Could something "bad" happen? I suppose. With that being said, something bad could happen if you get up out of your seat. The anxiety is always worse than the reality. Always.