2012-11-21

An even bigger flare today

Sunspot 1618 has really brought the Sun to life. Today it unleashed a large M3.5 solar flare, bigger than either of yesterdays flares. There is a slim hope that this spot may yet unleash an X sized eruption. Any CMEs ejected from these flares may result in displays of the Northern Lights....... stay tuned. Data below from my solar flare monitor, daytime live data at www.davegradwell.com/solarflares.html

Dave Gradwell

Exciting solar day

A bit of a lull was broken today by solar flares, and a surprise nudge from the solar wind.
2 Large spots have developed rapidly over the last few days, AR1618 unleashed 2 large M class flares. Luckily enough the first was on the daylight side as seen from Birr and my solar flare monitor picked it up. Then this evening the solar wind gave us a surprise nudge that sparked aurorae. This was out of the blue and just goes to show how unpredictable space weather is. You can see from my magnetogram that activity started about 6 and finished about 9. I wonder will we see "Gradwell's Gap". I have noticed that the best activity seems to occur after a gap of many hours after first impact. So maybe tomorrow evening we'll get to see a better display.

Dave Gradwell


2012-11-13

CME impact

A coronal mass ejection impacted Earth what looks like 20:52 on Nov 12th. This was when my magnetometer picked up its first large displacement. Magnetic activity continues as I type (1:40am on the 13th), so check for low level auroral displays. The graph shows my data and the impact.

Dave Gradwell