Growth of Cycle 25

[hamateur 1953]

Hmmmmm. Almost certain.  Ever so happy now that I left that qualification in now!   Hahaha. 😁. I’m presently looking for the culprit that turned the sun off. Will return at some later date….. Mike/Hagrid.  

[arjemma]

On 1/15/2024 at 4:00 AM, hamateur 1953 said:

Hi @arjemma Currently we are averaging 17.25 degrees above Solar equator.* Nearly where we were last year, although with flux rising as it has, we should be seeing the ss latitudes drop before May I would imagine.  

* total Ars north. Five  avg 15.8 deg  

total Ars south seven. Avg 18.7 deg

I realise that some may believe I see a direct connection between sunspot latitudes and 10.7 solar radio flux.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  It is quite possible for there to be high SFI with certain groups.  And at just about at any midpoint in any typical cycle.  Further confounding declaration of Solar Maximums.    So…. To further clarify, it is looking as though we should hit a nice peak 2024 May - June in accordance with what Jan Alvestad indicated as a possibility perhaps he isn’t expecting as high a peak as we are, but his charts indicate a steady climb thus far anyway.  

Sorry for the late reply, I had a lot to do at work this week.

Thank you so much for your information, very interesting! Yea the solar radio flux can vary a lot depending on AR's magnetic complexity and things like that. It is interesting with the latitudes however and yes I'm also having a feeling about May - June for some reason. I really do hope that we will get a nice peak but it could end up like the 50e percentile in NASA's prediction that @3gMike posted. I would say that is plausible indeed.

I hope we will have a nice ride in the declining phase as we have seen in other cycles. Some nice G4 - G5 storms would be nice right before solar minimum 😎

[hamateur 1953]

I found the culprits. The sun is back to Rockandroll  and SFI climbing again,  life is good.  250 Solar Flux Index is my wish. Achievable with a few more of those surface blemishes.  Haha. 

[Philalethes]

6 hours ago, hamateur 1953 said:

I found the culprits. The sun is back to Rockandroll  and SFI climbing again,  life is good.  250 Solar Flux Index is my wish. Achievable with a few more of those surface blemishes.  Haha. 

Almost 200 in the observed flux today I see, although having passed perihelion so recently helps in that regard.

250, on the other hand...

[tniickck]

current ISN for 22 days of January is 139.2

[hamateur 1953]

11 hours ago, tniickck said:

current ISN for 22 days of January is 139.2

A ways from 170 still. A shame we don’t go by surface area alone. 3559 is now an FKC I heard.  

11 hours ago, Philalethes said:

Almost 200 in the observed flux today I see, although having passed perihelion so recently helps in that regard.

250, on the other hand...

Perihelion does help SFI a few points naturally.  However the current surface activity likely overshadows those few points.  But we Hams love our 10.7 however we can get it! 
Drumroll please..  we just broke 200 SFI   22:00 NRC is 201 SFI 

 

Edited January 23 by hamateur 1953
22:00 NRC

[hamateur 1953]

It looks like Jan Alvestad may have to either refigure his triple running chart or possibly move his legend on the upper right.  Solar flux is now intruding into his legend…… Today is incredible Jan 23 2024. M class after M class. NRC may just throw up their hands cuz it’s nothing but X rays all day long over American and Canadian soils!! 

Edited January 23 by hamateur 1953
M classes galore

[tniickck]

today we set a record for the current cycle in terms of the number of M-flares. today it is 9, the last records were 8 per day on 20 May 2023 and 1 August 2023

Edited January 23 by tniickck
typo

[hamateur 1953]

Outta likes again @tniickck  haha. This cycle is really entertaining!!  Later dude.  Mike/Hagrid 

[Philalethes]

31 minutes ago, tniickck said:

today we set a record for the current cycle in terms of the number of M-flares. today it is 9, the last records were 8 per day on 20 May 2023 and 1 August 2023

And anotha' one.

[tniickck]

4 minutes ago, Philalethes said:

And anotha' one.

we still have 4 hours

[SpaceWeather5464]

6 minutes ago, Philalethes said:

And anotha' one.

And another one again lol.

[hamateur 1953]

@tniickck  you may be interested in this fact:  after Russia was also hammered in AUG 4 1972 a rare nighttime E layer developed over your entire country x class levels were sustained for an incredible 16 hours.  I wasn’t on the air at that time but lots of Russians were!! We may see a nighttime E layer again this evening  

[tniickck]

21 minutes ago, hamateur 1953 said:

@tniickck  you may be interested in this fact:  after Russia was also hammered in AUG 4 1972 a rare nighttime E layer developed over your entire country x class levels were sustained for an incredible 16 hours.  I wasn’t on the air at that time but lots of Russians were!! We may see a nighttime E layer again this evening  

well i didnt understand anything but i guess it is cool😁

[SpaceWeather5464]

20 minutes ago, hamateur 1953 said:

@tniickck  you may be interested in this fact:  after Russia was also hammered in AUG 4 1972 a rare nighttime E layer developed over your entire country x class levels were sustained for an incredible 16 hours.  I wasn’t on the air at that time but lots of Russians were!! We may see a nighttime E layer again this evening  

That is insane 😱

[hamateur 1953]

40 minutes ago, SpaceWeather5464 said:

That is insane 😱

yes it is.  @Philalethes even verified it. Not so much with hard data, but the levels were off-scale high for that long at the very least.  Short wave amateur radio operators ( hams) in russia were surprisingly able to use the higher frequencies all night long.  Edit: If @KW2P is around, I might imagine he is waiting for the sun to set, the D layer to disappear and then see what the ionosphere at F and E layers is capable of.  Probably 14 mhz will be open worldwide at least.  Mike  20:00 NRC SFI is only 180 with M 1.04 level. Hmmm. No clue have I why. 
must be a valid reason. 10.7 should be a whole lot higher. Especially with a blackout in progress.    

Edited January 23 by hamateur 1953
Speculations

[AurorahunterPA]

51 minutes ago, SpaceWeather5464 said:

And another one again lol.

[Philalethes]

29 minutes ago, hamateur 1953 said:

yes it is.  @Philalethes even verified it. Not so much with hard data, but the levels were off-scale high for that long at the very least.  Short wave amateur radio operators ( hams) in russia were surprisingly able to use the higher frequencies all night long.  Edit: If @KW2P is around, I might imagine he is waiting for the sun to set, the D layer to disappear and then see what the ionosphere at F and E layers is capable of.  Probably 14 mhz will be open worldwide at least.  Mike 

Hmm, I think I've mostly been referring to geomagnetic activity if I recall correctly, but maybe I did say something about the flares themselves that I've forgotten about. Perhaps it was referring to this paragraph on the flare from Wikipedia, which I might have quoted:

Quote

The 4 August flare was among the largest since records began. It saturated the Solrad 9 X-ray sensor at approximately X5.3 but was estimated to be in the vicinity of X20, the threshold of the very rarely reached R5 on the NOAA radio blackout space weather scale. A radio burst of 76,000 sfu was measured at 1 GHz. This was an exceptionally long duration flare, generating X-ray emissions above background level for more than 16 hours. Rare emissions in the gamma ray spectrum were detected for the first time, on both 4 and 7 August, by the Orbiting Solar Observatory (OSO 7). The broad spectrum electromagnetic emissions of the largest flare are estimated to total 1-5 x 10^32 ergs in energy released.

I'm not sure if it sustained X-level for all those 16 hours though, I'm inclined to think it didn't, but as noted it was clearly quite exceptional in any case.

[hamateur 1953]

24 minutes ago, Philalethes said:

Hmm, I think I've mostly been referring to geomagnetic activity if I recall correctly, but maybe I did say something about the flares themselves that I've forgotten about. Perhaps it was referring to this paragraph on the flare from Wikipedia, which I might have quoted:

I'm not sure if it sustained X-level for all those 16 hours though, I'm inclined to think it didn't, but as noted it was clearly quite exceptional in any case.

We were only capable of detecting up to approximately x-5 levels at that time using the satellite SOLRAD and Tamitha Skov has actually estimated at least one of the X classes as an X-20 in her four hour class. So I’m pretty sure of it given her typical care with data.  Mike.   However you may be correct as I now recall we were also looking at geomagnetic too. Haha. Anyway it was an impressive series of storms in either event.  The data series you pulled from somewhere wasn’t GFZ unless I am mistaken. But it did show, as you explained the absence of data indicated off scale high, which of course could be just about anything. NRC was in ottowa in 1972 I think, if that helps.   I stand corrected @Philalethes  I remember now we were trying to determine whether the BZ was positive before the main storm hit. And you showed it above plus ten at least.  Sorry about that!  Mike. 

Edited January 23 by hamateur 1953
Errata

[SpaceWeather5464]

48 minutes ago, AurorahunterPA said:

lol

[hamateur 1953]

Well it would seem based on the recent activity that our sun is still alive for the present.  I can postpone the eulogy for Solar Max awhile longer cuz his outbursts may unsettle some, but it tells me that he ain’t done for quite yet…. I also agree with @Philalethes that 250 SFI is probably impossible. At least for this rotation….

Edited January 24 by hamateur 1953
250?? Not quite yet….

[Jay-B]

2 hours ago, hamateur 1953 said:

I also agree with @Philalethes that 250 SFI is probably impossible. At least for this rotation….

Tabitha skov said that there are a couple big sunspots supposed to be turning into view in the next couple days so that might help!

[hamateur 1953]

1 hour ago, Jay-B said:

Tabitha skov said that there are a couple big sunspots supposed to be turning into view in the next couple days so that might help!

Thank you @Jay-B!!  

[KW2P]

We did get a monster E layer over the USA tonight. The cloud extended from the State of Georgia, west, all the way to New Mexico. There, it curved north across Utah, Nevada, and into Oregon. My friends were making hundreds of contacts, Idaho to California, etc. One guy worked 12 states in an hour. The active region was too far south to do me any good at all. But I enjoyed watching the action on the real-time maps and reading the commentary on the SKCC sked page. It was crazy.

[hamateur 1953]

11 hours ago, KW2P said:

We did get a monster E layer over the USA tonight. The cloud extended from the State of Georgia, west, all the way to New Mexico. There, it curved north across Utah, Nevada, and into Oregon. My friends were making hundreds of contacts, Idaho to California, etc. One guy worked 12 states in an hour. The active region was too far south to do me any good at all. But I enjoyed watching the action on the real-time maps and reading the commentary on the SKCC sked page. It was crazy

9 hours ago, hamateur 1953 said:

Oops

Editing messed up. Anyway Phil do you know if 15 meters opened?  I also suspect it capable of E layer work and have either worked a really short F layer on 15 or E layer before. 73 Mike.   I imagine @KW2P actually sleeps sometimes too.  Haha. Incredible. I never honestly expected it to recur!!! Bizarre beyond my own belief.  

Edited January 24 by hamateur 1953
Wowie