Strong G3 geomagnetic storm watch for 31 March

[MinYoongi]

Noaa modelled it, no impact expected.

 

 

Btw; i do think @Marcel de Bont was right. It seems the 2 CME's pretty much cancelled each other out.

[Pleiiades]

Looking at the images coming in, it appears the aurorae were at naked eye visibility (though in most cases barely) as far south as 38-40N. 

[Drax Spacex]

In the absence of Kp8, I could have had a V8!  Lessons learned:  1)  Our ability to predict when a CME will arrive is good.  2) Our ability to predict the strength of a CME is not good. 

Apologists acknowledged, I'm not convinced it is simply a lack of data.  I'm beginning to wonder if the fundamental understanding of the composition and dynamics of CMEs are not well understood or even wrong. 

 

 

 

 

[lightpanther]

Bah, G1. I might have known. My fears about late-ish arrival were confirmed. It was already starting to get light in Scotland.

[Emma Lundström]

Im absolutely amazed with auroras, so beautiful😍 But Im not that familiar with latitudes/longitudes etc, sorry if this may be a repetedly asked question today🙈 But Im really curios if someone knows if I will be able to se the auroras from northern Sweden 63°? And ofc if the weather is clear and I can get in the right spot, but it begins to darken outside just now!

Edited March 31, 2022 by Emma Lundström
Misspelling

[Vancanneyt Sander]

1 uur geleden, Drax Spacex zei:

I'm beginning to wonder if the fundamental understanding of the composition and dynamics of CMEs are not well understood or even wrong. 

There’s a lot unknown indeed. There is also a lot of space between the Sun and Earth and CMEs change along the course (and it gets more difficult with multiple CMEs catching eachother) and we have no way of tracking it along the way. And the other factor is that the direction of the IMF still can’t be predicted (It’s again a dominant northward one and due to that ‘only’ Kp4, if it was dominant southward it could have been G2 if it also lasted like it did now). 

[lightpanther]

Updated thoughts for tonight's "G3" slot, starting in two hours time?

[Vancanneyt Sander]

Zojuist, lightpanther zei:

Updated thoughts for tonight's "G3" slot, starting in two hours time?

IMF is north so no G3, no G2, no G1

[lightpanther]

5 hours ago, Vancanneyt Sander said:

IMF is north so no G3, no G2, no G1

I saw that. Looking ahead, how predictable is that, say three hours out?

[Marcel de Bont]

46 minuten geleden, Emma Lundström zei:

Im absolutely amazed with auroras, so beautiful😍 But Im not that familiar with latitudes/longitudes etc, sorry if this may be a repetedly asked question today🙈 But Im really curios if someone knows if I will be able to se the auroras from northern Sweden 63°? And ofc if the weather is clear and I can get in the right spot, but it begins to darken outside just now!

Welcome. At the moment I would say no as the Bz is pinned northward but if we flip south for a while things can change fast.

[KW2P]

Impressive radiation storm right now. Radio blackout over the Americas. And it's for real. ZERO radio signals on the 40 meter band. (This never happens except during a blackout). Conditions very bad on higher bands up to 30 MHz also. Few signals, very high noise level.

[finn]

1 hour ago, Emma Lundström said:

Im absolutely amazed with auroras, so beautiful😍 But Im not that familiar with latitudes/longitudes etc, sorry if this may be a repetedly asked question today🙈 But Im really curios if someone knows if I will be able to se the auroras from northern Sweden 63°? And ofc if the weather is clear and I can get in the right spot, but it begins to darken outside just now!

See article: What are latitudes and longitudes. Or, all in one picture.

I checked that Umeå might be one city roughly at 63°N. However, quite surprisingly Sweden doesn't seem to have stations latitudinally placed along the country quite as evenly as Norway and Finland have; If anything, it looks like Sweden has a gap in magnetometer stations in the zone where 63°N lies! But Finnish stations called MEK and HAN (abbreviations of the towns where they are) are about the same latitudes, and often if there's visible auroras there, you have a good chance of them being visible on similar latitudes of Sweden and Norway too. On this magnetometer data page, you could try selecting MEK or HAN station's data or just showing all the stations (which includes the two), then keeping an eye on what happens. Or, use this direct link which updates. There's things known as components X, Y and Z, and for northern lights, what you care about is the Z component. Counterintuitively, when the graph goes down, it's a sign of auroral activity! Note that some swaying is normal after midnight every single night, but a proper geomagnetic storm causes big sways that can make the graph lines overlap all over the place. I'm not sure if the timestamps are Finnish timezone times or UTC times; the graph is provided by the Finnish Meteorological Institute.
It might be useless to monitor any of those Earth stations if interplanetary magnetic field is wrong though; What you want to keep an eye on is the last graph called Bz, and the graph must be in the red, South. While I'm typing this, it's very far out in the green, North, unfortunately. 

I highly recommend looking up if Sweden provides aurora services and realtime information for locals.

Whether the skies are clear enough where you are, see local weather. I basically don't bother going out if it's cloudy, and thesedays you don't need to keep a lookout by the window in order to tell.

Typically, the best time to see auroras starts a bit after astronomical midnight (when the sun is physically on the exact opposite side of the Earth), although during proper geomagnetic storms it's possible to see them before that as well.

We still don't have an absolute way to predict auroras because there are many chaotic factors in the way they form; In the end, we're all just following the data and seeing how it plays out. It takes patience.

Edited March 31, 2022 by finn

[arjemma]

1 hour ago, Emma Lundström said:

Im absolutely amazed with auroras, so beautiful😍 But Im not that familiar with latitudes/longitudes etc, sorry if this may be a repetedly asked question today🙈 But Im really curios if someone knows if I will be able to se the auroras from northern Sweden 63°? And ofc if the weather is clear and I can get in the right spot, but it begins to darken outside just now!

Just wanted to add from the previous answer that there are also a bunch of magnetometers in Norway that are also useful for us in Sweden. I usually look at this site where you can find a lot of magnetometers: https://flux.phys.uit.no/stackplot/

[Emma Lundström]

39 minutes ago, finn said:

See article: What are latitudes and longitudes. Or, all in one picture.

I checked that Umeå might be one city roughly at 63°N. However, quite surprisingly Sweden doesn't seem to have stations latitudinally placed along the country quite as evenly as Norway and Finland have; If anything, it looks like Sweden has a gap in magnetometer stations in the zone where 63°N lies! But Finnish stations called MEK and HAN (abbreviations of the towns where they are) are about the same latitudes, and often if there's visible auroras there, you have a good chance of them being visible on similar latitudes of Sweden and Norway too. On this magnetometer data page, you could try selecting MEK or HAN station's data or just showing all the stations (which includes the two), then keeping an eye on what happens. Or, use this direct link which updates. There's things known as components X, Y and Z, and for northern lights, what you care about is the Z component. Counterintuitively, when the graph goes down, it's a sign of auroral activity! Note that some swaying is normal after midnight every single night, but a proper geomagnetic storm causes big sways that can make the graph lines overlap all over the place. I'm not sure if the timestamps are Finnish timezone times or UTC times; the graph is provided by the Finnish Meteorological Institute.
It might be useless to monitor any of those Earth stations if interplanetary magnetic field is wrong though; What you want to keep an eye on is the last graph called Bz, and the graph must be in the red, South. While I'm typing this, it's very far out in the green, North, unfortunately. 

I highly recommend looking up if Sweden provides aurora services and realtime information for locals.

Whether the skies are clear enough where you are, see local weather. I basically don't bother going out if it's cloudy, and thesedays you don't need to keep a lookout by the window in order to tell.

Typically, the best time to see auroras starts a bit after astronomical midnight (when the sun is physically on the exact opposite side of the Earth), although during proper geomagnetic storms it's possible to see them before that as well.

We still don't have an absolute way to predict auroras because there are many chaotic factors in the way they form; In the end, we're all just following the data and seeing how it plays out. It takes patience.

Thank you so much!🙏 Very appreciated!😅 I'm gonna go have a look at those links right away!😅

[ziggy stardust]

1 hour ago, Marcel de Bont said:

Welcome. At the moment I would say no as the Bz is pinned northward but if we flip south for a while things can change fast.

hi there, just starting this new hobby so really a complete novice, so lots of entry questions, why does the bz have to be south for the aurora. Is there anything that I can read or links you could send to get me up to speed quickly… cheers

[Emma Lundström]

20 minutes ago, arjemma said:

Just wanted to add from the previous answer that there are also a bunch of magnetometers in Norway that are also useful for us in Sweden. I usually look at this site where you can find a lot of magnetometers: https://flux.phys.uit.no/stackplot/

 

Thank you so much!🙏 

Absolutely checking that out!😅

 

[Marcel de Bont]

6 minuten geleden, ziggy stardust zei:

hi there, just starting this new hobby so really a complete novice, so lots of entry questions, why does the bz have to be south for the aurora. Is there anything that I can read or links you could send to get me up to speed quickly… cheers

Welcome. From our help section:

The solar wind is the first piece of the puzzle that we need to know about to fully understand what space weather is all about. The second piece of the puzzle has to do with the magnetic field of the Sun. This is what we call the interplanetary magnetic field. The interplanetary magnetic field is carried throughout the solar system by the solar wind and its properties change continuously. The interplanetary magnetic field constantly changes both in strength and direction. For aurora we want that the total strength of the interplanetary magnetic field to be as high as possible (indicated with Bt) and that the Z-component (Bz) of the interplanetary magnetic field turns southward. On the graph which you can find on our site you will see a negative value when the Z-component (Bz) of the interplanetary magnetic field turns southward.

But why is it so important for us that the Z-component of the interplanetary magnetic field turns southward? That is actually quite easy to understand if you ever played with bar magnets. If you take two ordinary bar magnets and try to put both of the north (or south-) poles together you will see that the magnets want to move away from each other. They repel each other. If you put the north and the south poles together you will see that they attract each other! The opposite polarities attract each other! Exactly the same principle happens in space where the interplanetary magnetic field and Earth’s magnetic field meet as the magnetic field lines from Earth point from south to north. This is the Z-component of Earth’s magnetic field and this always points to the north. When the Z-component of the interplanetary magnetic field also points north we will see that just like the bar magnets that we have in our homes, the solar wind gets repelled and fails to make a connection with Earth’s magnetic field, making it harder to enter our atmosphere.

Now let’s pretend that the Z-component (Bz) of the interplanetary magnetic field has turned southward. We now know that because the magnetic field of the Earth points northward, the interplanetary magnetic field with a southward Z-component has a much easier time connecting with the magnetic field of our planet. Think of the bar magnets! South and north attract each other! With this connection, it will be much easier for the solar wind to enter out atmosphere. On the graph which you can find on our site we want to see a negative value. This means that the Z-component (Bz) of the interplanetary magnetic field is pointing south.

[Sam Warfel]

6 minutes ago, ziggy stardust said:

hi there, just starting this new hobby so really a complete novice, so lots of entry questions, why does the bz have to be south for the aurora. Is there anything that I can read or links you could send to get me up to speed quickly… cheers

It has to do with the interaction between the interplanetary magnetic field and the earth’s magnetic field. If the Bz is north, the two fields do not connected, and the charged particles in the solar wind glance off earth’s magnetic field and do not cause Aurora. 

If the Bz is south, then the interplanetary magnetic field connects or merges with earth’s, and charged particles are funneled into the poles, causing Aurora. 

[finn]

36 minutes ago, arjemma said:

Just wanted to add from the previous answer that there are also a bunch of magnetometers in Norway that are also useful for us in Sweden. I usually look at this site where you can find a lot of magnetometers: https://flux.phys.uit.no/stackplot/

Definitely! If you have a station in both Norway and Finland showing activity on the same latitudes, it's almost certain that Sweden won't be missing out on it at that point. Good site, that – going to add it to my collection as well!

I'm just less familiar with Norwegian stations. Map: Magnetometer station locations in mainland Scandinavia. That gap in Sweden should be covered by Norwegian station DOB and Finnish station HAN which are on each side of the gap.

Edited March 31, 2022 by finn

[ziggy stardust]

Got it, many thanks for this very easy explanation, so the bigger the south Bz, the greater the potential storm is going to be. Can see from your graphs that Bz is north so really no /low chance of any storms, is this the main indicator that I need to keep an eye on. If the solar wind is high then does that also mean that there is something potentially arriving too.? cheers 

[ChaseChases]

Looks to be cloudy in my area when it will hit, likely won't see it. : (

[Sunboi]

The BZ might be stuck north. But from past experiences when it sticks north for so long with such a high IMF it normally drops south hard ones IMF settles. 

there’s a good chance we will have a very long stretch of negative BZ heading our way soon! (Prays to the all 500+ gods) 

[finn]

40 minutes ago, ziggy stardust said:

Can see from your graphs that Bz is north so really no /low chance of any storms, is this the main indicator that I need to keep an eye on. If the solar wind is high then does that also mean that there is something potentially arriving too.? cheers 

There are several factors, but that's one of the important ones yes. Satellites monitor space weather in space so they can tell us beforehand what's heading our way, but after passing the satellites, the solar wind can still change because it's very chaotic especially when it's coming from a violent solar flare. Eventually only when the solar wind reaches the Earth, we'll know what its state is at that point in time. But if the satellites are measuring strong North polarity, I think it's highly unlikely that it would then arrive to the Earth with a significant South polarity.

Solar wind's speed unfortunately doesn't help much if the Bz is pointing the wrong way. The Earth is essentially like a massive bar magnet: Earth's North has a negative (-) polarity and the South is positive (+). Remember that with magnetism, opposites attract and similarity repels; For example, the pointing end of a compass needle points at Earth's magnetic North pole because that end of the needle has a positive polarity (+) which is opposite to the Earth's magnetic North pole (-). 
Image: Earth's poles
Image: Bar magnet behaviour

So, if you hurl some charged particles at the Earth, they need to be of the opposite polarity in order to get pulled right in to the Earth's atmosphere. But if the particles have the same polarity as Earth's magnetic pole, they repel each other just like when trying to put the "wrong" ends of two magnets together. That's what's happening right now as the particles just speed past us without visiting. You'll want Bz to point South in order for it to be attracted to Earth's North!

Edited March 31, 2022 by finn

[ziggy stardust]

55 minutes ago, finn said:

There are several factors, but that's one of the important ones yes. Satellites monitor space weather in space so they can tell us beforehand what's heading our way, but after passing the satellites, the solar wind can still change because it's very chaotic especially when it's coming from a violent solar flare. Eventually only when the solar wind reaches the Earth, we'll know what its state is at that point in time. But if the satellites are measuring strong North polarity, I think it's highly unlikely that it would then arrive to the Earth with a significant South polarity.

Solar wind's speed unfortunately doesn't help much if the Bz is pointing the wrong way. The Earth is essentially like a massive bar magnet: Earth's North has a negative (-) polarity and the South is positive (+). Remember that with magnetism, opposites attract and similarity repels; For example, the pointing end of a compass needle points at Earth's magnetic North pole because that end of the needle has a positive polarity (+) which is opposite to the Earth's magnetic North pole (-). 
Image: Earth's poles
Image: Bar magnet behaviour

So, if you hurl some charged particles at the Earth, they need to be of the opposite polarity in order to get pulled right in to the Earth's atmosphere. But if the particles have the same polarity as Earth's magnetic pole, they repel each other just like when trying to put the "wrong" ends of two magnets together. That's what's happening right now as the particles just speed past us without visiting. You'll want Bz to point South in order for it to be attracted to Earth's North!

great thanks👍

[lightpanther]

But over long hours does the Bz actually show reliable trends at all?
Or is it like the stock market? No matter what people claim, you actually just can't predict it?