May 2024 Geomagnetic Storms from AR 13664 (2)

[Jesterface23]

Our final CME arrival from possibly region 3664 has come.

[MinYoongi]

11 minutes ago, Jesterface23 said:

Our final CME arrival from possibly region 3664 has come.

from which CME? (time of eruption)

[Hissmeowra]

My colleague showed me some really impressive pictures of aurora that she took in southern New York (~52 N I think) on Sunday night (would have been around 3 UTC on the 13th). She said the pink colour was visible to the eye. If I recall correctly, metrics at the time were not at all favourable for aurora at low-mid latitudes. Is it common that there could be local conditions that produce aurora even if the overall conditions are unsettled but not generally favourable? Or did she just get really lucky?

[Marcel de Bont]

1 uur terug, Jesterface23 zei:

Our final CME arrival from possibly region 3664 has come.

Could be the M6.6 glancing blow CME yeah, something caused the Bt to jump. But yeah, it's nothing to write home about unfortunately. 

27 minuten geleden, Hissmeowra zei:

My colleague showed me some really impressive pictures of aurora that she took in southern New York (~52 N I think) on Sunday night (would have been around 3 UTC on the 13th). She said the pink colour was visible to the eye. If I recall correctly, metrics at the time were not at all favourable for aurora at low-mid latitudes. Is it common that there could be local conditions that produce aurora even if the overall conditions are unsettled but not generally favourable? Or did she just get really lucky?

It's not impossible. The Kp was 6 at the time. The solar wind speed was high and we came from a period with a couple of hours of southward Bz. The magnetosphere was still rattled from the G5 event... I guess if she was in a dark enough place she could have seen aurora towards the northern horizon yes. 

[Jesterface23]

1 hour ago, MinYoongi said:

from which CME? (time of eruption)

The M6.6 back on the 13th.

[mozy]

Seems we have another impact?

[Jesterface23]

Hmm, time to head to the other topic.

[LunarLights58]

Was last week's CME outburst event like the Carrington Event in any way? 

[Philalethes]

27 minutes ago, LunarLights58 said:

Was last week's CME outburst event like the Carrington Event in any way? 

Well, they were both strong geomagnetic storms; much like you could describe both humans and elephants as large land mammals.

[hamateur 1953]

Others may be aware of the 26 degree  Northern Hemisphere visibility here ( From SW.C.)  Unofficially from Australia:  Townsville at 19 degrees S just beat us. Well… it is winter there.  I wanna see the gun camera footage too…

Edited May 17 by hamateur 1953
Verify or die

[solar investigator]

1 hour ago, LunarLights58 said:

Was last week's CME outburst event like the Carrington Event in any way? 

No much weaker than the carrington event. By a factor of about 12. But the effects are similar only because of earths weakening field. If an actual carrinton event hit us now the effects would be much worse than in 1859. And likely some proton penetration. Not dangerous levels but to some extent

We saw what negative bz45/800km/s, 20pcm³ did now imagine negative bz200 at 2200km/s and 300pcm³

[Jesterface23]

2 hours ago, LunarLights58 said:

Was last week's CME outburst event like the Carrington Event in any way? 

The CMES we are impacted by were much slower, but by chance the CMEs arrived in a way they we managed to reach G5. If the speeds of all of the CMEs were faster and having more shock arrivals to start the event, we may not have reached G5.

Overall, we'll need some type of extreme event to happen to even try to compare something to the Carrington event.

[Philalethes]

7 minutes ago, solar investigator said:

No much weaker than the carrington event. By a factor of about 12.

I don't think this claim has any real basis, but even if it did an entire order of magnitude would still be way weaker, so it wouldn't make sense to say that it's "not much weaker" in that case.

8 minutes ago, solar investigator said:

But the effects are similar only because of earths weakening field.

The geomagnetic field has weakened ~5% in ~80 years, so perhaps ~10% in 150 years if we are to be generous (although it seems to be closer to ~8%). It makes little sense to say the Carrington Event was 12 times as strong as this, but that the effects were somehow similar due to what is at most 10% of weakening, unless you assume some totally unrealistic nonlinear effects.

I wouldn't say the effects were that similar at all based on the descriptions we have of the Carrington Event; widespread aurorae alone doesn't really cut it, that's a common feature of many strong and extreme geomagnetic storms.

55 minutes ago, solar investigator said:

If an actual carrinton event hit us now the effects would be much worse than in 1859.

There's little evidence to suggest that that's the case. Not only is a 10% weaker (again, at most) geomagnetic field hardly likely to lead to "much" worse outcomes, but there are also many respects in which we are far better prepared for it now than before.

57 minutes ago, solar investigator said:

And likely some proton penetration.

You can get ground level enhancement from far weaker events than the Carrington Event. According to the GLE database, there have been over 70 GLEs since 1940 alone.

1 hour ago, solar investigator said:

We saw what negative bz45/800km/s, 20pcm³ did now imagine negative bz200 at 2200km/s and 300pcm³

First of all, it's not necessarily as simple as comparing peak numbers like that, because e.g. in this case one of the reasons we got such a strong storm was due to those conditions being very persistent, remaining at those values for a long time; in contrast, a different event might have much higher peak values, but which don't persist (the 1972 storm comes to mind).

Secondly, those values for the Carrington Event seem extremely exaggerated, and I suspect you just made them up. Realistic estimates are significantly lower for all those properties; still quite a bit stronger than this recent storm, but not that strong.

[hamateur 1953]

54 minutes ago, Philalethes said:

I don't think this claim has any real basis, but even if it did an entire order of magnitude would still be way weaker, so it wouldn't make sense to say that it's "not much weaker" in that case.

The geomagnetic field has weakened ~5% in ~80 years, so perhaps ~10% in 150 years if we are to be generous (although it seems to be closer to ~8%). It makes little sense to say the Carrington Event was 12 times as strong as this, but that the effects were somehow similar due to what is at most 10% of weakening, unless you assume some totally unrealistic nonlinear effects.

I wouldn't say the effects were that similar at all based on the descriptions we have of the Carrington Event; widespread aurorae alone doesn't really cut it, that's a common feature of many strong and extreme geomagnetic storms.

There's little evidence to suggest that that's the case. Not only is a 10% weaker (again, at most) geomagnetic field hardly likely to lead to "much" worse outcomes, but there are also many respects in which we are far better prepared for it now than before.

You can get ground level enhancement from far weaker events than the Carrington Event. According to the GLE database, there have been over 70 GLEs since 1940 alone.

First of all, it's not necessarily as simple as comparing peak numbers like that, because e.g. in this case one of the reasons we got such a strong storm was due to those conditions being very persistent, remaining at those values for a long time; in contrast, a different event might have much higher peak values, but which don't persist (the 1972 storm comes to mind).

Secondly, those values for the Carrington Event seem extremely exaggerated, and I suspect you just made them up. Realistic estimates are significantly lower for all those properties; still quite a bit stronger than this recent storm, but not that strong.

Since you brought up 1972 event here. 
The planetary A index for May10-11 from GFZ appears to be about 275 on Jans chart.  Comfortably exceeding 1972 by at least fifty points.  Incredible 

[Philalethes]

Just now, hamateur 1953 said:

Since you brought up 1972 event here. 
The planetary A index for May10-11 from GFZ appears to be about 275 on Jans chart.  Comfortably exceeding 1972 by at least fifty points.  Incredible 

Yep, exceeding the Ap-index for 1972-08-05 at 182 by almost 100 points, although this is a case where doing daily averages instead of running averages can be a bit misleading, since the last 3-hour period of the a-index from the day before was the largest brief surge up to 400, so the running average would be 224 instead, but this event would still beat it by 50 points in those terms. And the Dst is almost laughable when considering the strength of the CME istelf, clocking in at just -125 nT at the peak. I bet that during the transient initial moments of southwards Bz when the sea mines exploded that it beat the Solar wind values for this storm by a lot, but that obviously wasn't nearly as effective overall as the consistency of this event.

[solar investigator]

Sorry by proton penetration i actually mean solar wind penetrating our atmosphere due from oversaturation of earths magnetic field/retarded standoff

It would honestly be very curious to see what solar wind would actually do to our atmosphere and ground level if it ever made it that far. I feel like it probably wouldnt be dangerous to us. Or complete opposite. It would defintely supercharge atmodpheric patterns thats for sure. Super lightning bolts as well. EF7 tornados. Etc etc

I think what would possibly happen. Is that our atmosphere would actually cool down the solar wind plasma and slow it down significantly to the point where some of that plasma likely condensates into actual solid matter and rains on the ground as dust and blobs of iron and a multitude of other elements

Edited May 18 by solar investigator

[hamateur 1953]

10 hours ago, solar investigator said:

Sorry by proton penetration i actually mean solar wind penetrating our atmosphere due from oversaturation of earths magnetic field/retarded standoff

It would honestly be very curious to see what solar wind would actually do to our atmosphere and ground level if it ever made it that far. I feel like it probably wouldnt be dangerous to us. Or complete opposite. It would defintely supercharge atmodpheric patterns thats for sure. Super lightning bolts as well. EF7 tornados. Etc etc

I think what would possibly happen. Is that our atmosphere would actually cool down the solar wind plasma and slow it down significantly to the point where some of that plasma likely condensates into actual solid matter and rains on the ground as dust and blobs of iron and a multitude of other elements

You have quite a fertile imagination! Chill out. We just survived number five of the running Potsdam. And particle radiation is detected at ground level as you indicated in several storms typically each cycle.  The only living things that might ever be endangered are those outside of our protective atmosphere and magnetic field that keep us all safe. Stick around, it’s a whole lot of fun.  The more you learn, the less you will fear.   The Friday/ Saturday storm appears on Solen website to have been at approximately 275 Ap.  Pretty incredible.   I also acknowledge here that GFZ is  German which unfortunately I am not fluent in and there may caveats in German or future revisions to the final Ap for that incredible event. Mike 

Edited May 18 by hamateur 1953
Double checked GFZ

[Christopher Shriver]

5 hours ago, solar investigator said:

Super lightning bolts as well. EF7 tornados. Etc etc

This squarely belongs in Unproven Theories. Why not super tsunamis, super hurricanes, and super long advertisements? I agree with hamateur - you have quite an imagination. It's full of abject chaos without a clear reason. Protons don't do this.

[Ingolf]

Probably already asked but can't find it, does anyone know when the Ap Value will be final calculated and the storm will be implemented in the SWL Top 50 Charts? 

[Vancanneyt Sander]

7 minuten geleden, Ingolf zei:

Probably already asked but can't find it, does anyone know when the Ap Value will be final calculated and the storm will be implemented in the SWL Top 50 Charts? 

Finalized Kp Potsdam is not yet available but should be in a few days. 

[helios]

Previously suspected, now officially confirmed
The protons from the X5 flare in the morning of the 11th have produced the 74th GLE
https://gle.oulu.fi

[hamateur 1953]

4 hours ago, helios said:

Previously suspected, now officially confirmed
The protons from the X5 flare in the morning of the 11th have produced the 74th GLE
https://gle.oulu.fi

Thank you @helios for posting that!  STCE which I typically check isn’t as quick as some of us here seem to be. This is kinda funny to me.  Oulu I had assumed for a few years had to be in Hawaii!  Sounded like it to me anyway. I think a gal here PMed me last year and advised me to check Norway or Finland  
🤣🤣

Edited May 18 by hamateur 1953
Always a latitude issue!

[helios]

Honoloulu

[Ingolf]

The data from Potsdam is there and this geomagnetic storm is at the second place in the SWL Top 50 ranking of geomagnetic storms with an Ap of 271.

The Halloween Storm 2003 is listed at position 7 with an Ap 204.

The Ap doesn't use every single value in it's calculation. It depends very on the duration of a storm. 

Now the question, all the people always want to know "which storm was bigger", they always want to compare with something. We can read it so often with Carrington for example. 

So if someone is asking, which storm was bigger? Halloween or May 2024? 

Please say May 2024, I already made an Instagram story 🤣

[Philalethes]

40 minutes ago, Ingolf said:

The data from Potsdam is there and this geomagnetic storm is at the second place in the SWL Top 50 ranking of geomagnetic storms with an Ap of 271.

The Halloween Storm 2003 is listed at position 7 with an Ap 204.

The Ap doesn't use every single value in it's calculation. It depends very on the duration of a storm. 

Now the question, all the people always want to know "which storm was bigger", they always want to compare with something. We can read it so often with Carrington for example. 

So if someone is asking, which storm was bigger? Halloween or May 2024? 

Please say May 2024, I already made an Instagram story 🤣

Keep in mind that the storms there are primarily ranked by the top Kp-index present within each day, and only secondarily by Ap (maybe a possibility to enable ranking by Ap, @Vancanneyt Sander?); if you go down to e.g. the first storm without any Kp-index of 9 at 28th place, you'll see the Ap-index there jumps up again.

Not sure what you mean by the Ap not using every single value; it's calculated from the average ap-index that each value of Kp corresponds to (as given by this table), i.e. adding all the values for the day together and dividing by 8. This might miss some nuance where e.g. a storm starts late in a given day and continues only halfway through the next, since it'll essentially be split in half over the two days; using a peak running average of 8 consecutive ap-values instead would probably give a better indication in general.

As for which was bigger, that's a good question. This one did have a full day of larger sustained values as measured by the Ap-index, but the Halloween storm seemed to have a much more rapid onset (going from an ap of 27 in one 3-hour interval straight to 400, which is G5, in the next), which might be part of why it caused some grid problems, and also a second strong bout of high activity (this one also got back to G5 after a few hours, but the Halloween storm did so over a full day after onset). This one had a stronger Dst peak. If I had to decide I'd say this one was the stronger one overall, but not by much.

Here is the data on the two storms from Potsdam.