Huge and prolific solar flare producing sunspot group #'s 10486 and 10487 will rotate out of view across the Sun's western limb soon, hooray!!! With their disappearance we can expect solar, space and geomagnetic activity to get back to a quieter and more normal level. Unfortunately though we will still have to deal with minor Kp-5 to moderate Kp-6 geomagnetic storming with the endless parade of Coronal Holes that are most prevalent on the downward side of a solar cycle.
As discussed yesterday sunspot group #10486 produced a huge X8.3 class solar flare between 1704-2039 UTC. It produced a 30000+ KC radio blackout on the sunlight side of the Earth centered on the America's. Here in Central Florida, USA the blackout began at 1705 UTC and ended at 1833 UTC. It also produced another elevated energetic proton level of >10 MeV (10+o) that peaked at 797 pfu. Though #10486 it is no longer geo-effective it still produced a large and very fast (1079 km/s) Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) that will blast our Magnetosphere later today or early UTC tomorrow. It's always a tough forecast with partially geo-effective CME's but here goes. Mid latitudes should see strong K-7 G3 to severe K-8 G4 storming, with high latitudes extreme K-9 G5 storming. Mid latitude visible Aurora is also possible if the Bz becomes negative. At 1806 UTC the Bz is +1.9. At 0130 UTC today sunspot group #10488 produced a huge X2.7 class solar flare followed at 0943 UTC by an even larger X4.3. Though both produced radio blackouts and probable CME's, they are not geo-effective and will probably have no negative impact on Earth's magnetic field. It's to bad that SWL's and Ham's really could not take full advantage of the really high daily solar flux levels of the past 10 days. As is often the case large and numerous solar flares push the solar flux to very high levels but then counteract the high numbers with F layer destroying geomagnetic storms. We saw 8 days with the solar flux level above 250 and several brief periods where the solar flux exceeded 300. On 03/10/28 it reached 318, the highest daily solar flux number of cycle 23. The previous highest had been 294 in March 2001. By the way when activity returns to normal I will begin producing my formal 72 hour HF/MF radio propagation outlook again. For those unfamiliar with it you can see it at http://www.kn4lf.com/kn4lf6.htm . 73, Thomas F. Giella, KN4LF Plant City, FL, USA EL87WX Yaesu FT-840 Digital Modes Website & E-List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/yaesu_ft840 KN4LF 160 Meter Amateur Radio Resources & More: http://www.kn4lf.com/kn4lf.htm KN4LF Daily Solar Space Weather & Geomagnetic Data Archive Plus Daily HF/MF Radio Propagation Outlook: http://www.kn4lf.com/kn4lf5.htm Florida Space & Atmospheric Weather Institute: http://www.kn4lf.com/fsawi.htm --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free Thanks To Grisoft AVG. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.536 / Virus Database: 331 - Release Date: 11/3/2003 ---[Start Commercial]--------------------- World Radio TV Handbook 2004 is coming out! Preorder yours now! Only $20.97 through us. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0823059685/hardcoredxcom ---[End Commercial]----------------------- ________________________________________ Hard-Core-DX mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://dallas.hard-core-dx.com/mailman/listinfo/hard-core-dx http://www.hard-core-dx.com/ _______________________________________________ THE INFORMATION IN THIS ARTICLE IS FREE. It may be copied, distributed and/or modified under the conditions set down in the Design Science License published by Michael Stutz at http://dsl.org/copyleft/dsl.txt