UPDATE: 09-26-2011 - Solar Flares. SIGNIFICANT SOLAR EVENT TAKING PLACE NOW. Significant Ground Currents. Satellites May Experience Issues With Solar Wind Plasma & Magnetic Fields.

SEVERE GEOMAGNETIC STORM TAKING PLACE RIGHT NOW...

ALERT:
Space Weather Message Code: WARK07
Serial Number: 33
Issue Time: 2011 Sep 26 1708 UTC

WARNING: Geomagnetic K-index of 7 or greater expected
Valid From: 2011 Sep 26 1715 UTC
Valid To: 2011 Sep 26 2100 UTC
Warning Condition: Onset
NOAA Scale: G3 or greater - Strong to Extreme
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/alerts/warnings_timeline.html

 

http://www.lmsal.com/solarsoft/latest_events/

 

IMPACT: A coronal mass ejection (CME) hit Earth's magnetic field at approximately 12:15 UT on Sept. 26th. The impact caused significant ground currents in Norway. Also, the Goddard Space Weather Lab reports a "strong compression of Earth's magnetosphere. Simulations indicate that solar wind plasma [has penetrated] close to geosynchronous orbit starting at 13:00UT." Geosynchronous satellites could therefore be directly exposed to solar wind plasma and magnetic fields. Stay tuned for updates. 

SPACEWEATHER.COM

SOLAR STATIC: Active sunspot 1302 has turned the sun into a shortwave radio transmitter. Shock waves rippling from the sunspot's exploding magnetic canopy are exciting plasma oscillations in the sun's atmosphere. The result: Bursts of static are issuing from the loudspeakers of shortwave radios on Earth. Amateur radio astronomer Thomas Ashcraft recorded this sample from his backyard observatory in New Mexico on Sept. 24th:

Dynamic spectrum: The horizontal axis is time (h:m:s), the vertical axis is frequency (MHz). Image credit: Wes Greenman

"Saturday was a super-strong solar day with near continuous flaring and radio sweeps," says Ashcraft. "The sound file (above) corresponds to an M3 flare at 1918 UTC. It was the strongest radio sweep of the observing day."

"Try listening to the radio bursts in stereo," he advises. "I was recording on two separate radios at 21.1 MHz and 21.9 MHz, and I put each one into its own channel of the audio file. This gives a spatial dimension as the bursts sweep down in frequency."

SPACEWEATHER.COM 

FORECAST...

SPACE WEATHER NOAA Forecasts

Updated at: 2011 Sep 25 2235 UTC

FLARE	0-24 hr	24-48 hr
CLASS M	80 %	80 %
CLASS X	40 %	40 %

Geomagnetic Storms:
Probabilities for significant disturbances in Earth's magnetic field are given for three activity levels: active, minor storm, severe storm
Updated at: 2011 Sep 25 2235 UTC
Mid-latitudes

	0-24 hr	24-48 hr
ACTIVE	45 %	30 %
MINOR	20 %	15 %
SEVERE	10 %	05 %

High latitudes

	0-24 hr	24-48 hr
ACTIVE	45 %	30 %
MINOR	25 %	15 %
SEVERE	15 %	05 %

 

Satellite Environment Plot

Proton Flux from GOES-13, Electron Flux and GOES Hp from GOES-13 & GOES-15

NOAA 

Space Weather Alerts and Warnings Timeline

NOAA

Big, Bright Flare

Just as an active region rotated into view, it unleashed a large (X1.4 class) solar flare (Sept. 22, 2011) as well as several smaller flares and a significant coronal mass ejection. Predictions are that the storm will likely not impact Earth. Following the bright flare, one can see brilliant coils of magnetic field lines regrouping themselves. Images were taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory in extreme ultraviolet light.

NASA SDO