SOHO LASCO C2 Latest Image

FAST-GROWING SUNSPOT: Barely visible when the weekend began, sunspot AR1619 has blossomed into a large active region more than three times as wide as Earth. 24 hour movie recorded by NASA's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory: So far the growing sunspot has not produced any significant flares, but the quiet is unlikely to continue if its expansion continues apace. Fast-changing magnetic fields on the sun have a tendency to reconnect and erupt. NOAA forecasters estimate a 20% chance of M-class solar flares during the next 24 hours.

SOLAR WIND: A medium-speed (~425 km/s) stream of solar wind is buffeting Earth's magnetic field. The solar wind is not blowing hard enough to ignite a full-fledged geomagnetic storm, but it is stirring up some beautiful auroras around the Arctic Circle. The sunspot has also developed a 'beta-gamma' magnetic field that harbors energy for strong solar flares. Sunspot AR1618 has a beta-gamma magnetic field that harbors energy for M-class solar flares. NOAA forecasters estimate a 30% chance of M-class flares and a 5% chance of X-flares during the next 24 hours. Because of the sunspot's nearly central location on the solar disk, any eruptions will likely be Earth-directed.

M-CLASS SOLAR FLARES: The magnetic canopy of big sunspot AR1618 is crackling with M-class solar flares. This image taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory shows the extreme ultraviolet flash from one of them, an M1.6-class flare on Nov. 20th at 1928 UT: This eruption, and another one like it about 7 hours earlier, might have propelled faint coronal mass ejections (CMEs) toward Earth. If so, the impacts would likely commence on Nov. 23rd, with a chance of high-latitude geomagnetic storms following their arrival.

CHANCE OF STORMS: NOAA forecasters estimate a 65% chance of polar geomagnetic storms on Nov. 23rd when a pair of CMEs is expected to hit Earth's magnetic field. The incoming clouds were propelled toward Earth by the recent eruptions of sunspot AR1618. Black Friday might be tinged red and green by the glow of high-latitude auroras.

BIG SUNSPOT AR1618: The magnetic canopy of sunspot AR1618 is crackling with M-class solar flares, and NOAA forecasters say an X-flare could be in the offing. AR1618 has a delta-class magnetic field that harbors energy for the strongest eruptions. Any flares today would likely be Earth-directed as the sunspot is directly facing our planet. Solar flare alerts: text, voice.

Sunspot AR1618 is so large (10 times wider than Earth) that Jett Aguilar was able to see it this morning when the sun came up over Marikina City, the Philippines

TODAY'S LINKS
Galaxies Connected: http://phys.org/news/2012-11-planck-filament-hot-gas-linking.html

Romanian Solar Power: http://phys.org/news/2012-11-solar-power-eclipse-nuclear-romania.html

Australian Fracking Study: http://phys.org/news/2012-11-australian-scientists-excess-greenhouse-gas.html

Greenland Ice Sheet: http://phys.org/news/2012-11-princeton-geoscientists-greenland-ice-sheet.html

Extended Forecast: http://www.weather.com/news/weather-winter/winter-forecast-extended-long-range

Buoy Info: http://www.bom.gov.au/tsunami/about/detection_buoys.shtml

REPEAT LINKS
Spaceweather: http://spaceweather.com/ [Look on the left at the X-ray Flux and Solar Wind Speed/Density]

HAARP: http://www.haarp.alaska.edu/haarp/data.html [Click online data, and have a little fun]

CERES JPL: http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=ceres;orb=1;cov=0;log=0;cad=0#orb

SDO: http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/ [Place to find Solar Images and Videos - as seen from earth]

Helioviewer: http://www.helioviewer.org/

SOHO: http://sohodata.nascom.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/soho_movie_theater [SOHO; Lasco and EIT - as seen from earth]

Stereo: http://stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/images [Stereo; Cor, EUVI, HI - as seen from the side]

SunAEON: http://www.sunaeon.com/#/solarsystem/ [Just click it... trust me]

SOLARIMG: http://solarimg.org/artis/ [All purpose data viewing site]

iSWA: http://iswa.gsfc.nasa.gov/iswa/iSWA.html [Free Application; for advanced sun watchers]

NASA ENLIL SPIRAL: http://iswa.gsfc.nasa.gov:8080/IswaSystemWebApp/iSWACygnetStreamer?timestamp=...
NOAA ENLIL SPIRAL: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/wsa-enlil/

US Wind Map: http://hint.fm/wind/

NOAA Buoys: http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/

RADIATION Network: http://radiationnetwork.com/

NOAA Environmental Visualization Laboratory: http://www.nnvl.noaa.gov/Default.php

RSOE: http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/index2.php [That cool alert map I use]

GOES Xray: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/sxi/goes15/index.html

JAPAN Radiation Map: http://jciv.iidj.net/map/

LISS: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/monitoring/operations/heliplots_gsn.php

Gamma Ray Bursts: http://grb.sonoma.edu/ [Really? You can't figure out what this one is for?]

BARTOL Cosmic Rays: http://neutronm.bartol.udel.edu//spaceweather/welcome.html [Top left box, look for BIG blue circles]

TORCON: http://www.weather.com/news/tornado-torcon-index [Tornado Forecast for the day]

GOES Weather: http://rsd.gsfc.nasa.gov/goes/ [Clouds over America]

RAIN RECORDS: http://www.cocorahs.org/ViewData/ListIntensePrecipReports.aspx

EL DORADO WORLD WEATHER MAP: http://www.eldoradocountyweather.com/satellite/ssec/world/world-composite-ir-sat.html

PRESSURE MAP: http://www.woweather.com/cgi-bin/expertcharts?LANG=us&MENU=0000000000&CONT=glob&MODELL=gfs&MODELLTYP=1&BASE=-&VAR=pslv&HH=0&ARCHIV=0&PANEL=0&ZOOM=0&PERIOD=

HURRICANE TRACKER: http://www.weather.com/weather/hurricanecentral/tracker

INTELLICAST: http://www.intellicast.com/ [Weather site used by many youtubers]

NASA News: http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/

PHYSORG: http://phys.org/ [GREAT News Site!]

QUAKES LIST FULL: http://www.emsc-csem.org/Earthquake/seismologist.php

Global Warming Quiz 1: https://www.youtube.com/my_playlists?p=A4FE7F9615C4B7A1
Global Warming Quiz 2: https://www.youtube.com/my_playlists?p=B3464AB11B92424D
Other Climate Videos: https://www.youtube.com/my_playlists?p=23062464433DE63C
Other Solar Videos: https://www.youtube.com/my_playlists?p=8D1845B15598D5A3

GEOMAGNETIC STORM WATCH: NOAA forecasters have downgraded the chances of a geomagnetic storm on Nov. 25th to 50% as an incoming CME takes longer to arrive than expected. The tardy cloud might yet spark auroras before the weekend is over.

BREAK IN THE MONOTONY: With sunspot AR1618 in decay, solar activity was very low on Nov. 24th. The only break in the monotony was provided by a 500 ton winged spacecraft. The International Space Station passed directly in front of the sun over Entre Rios, Argentina, where Leonardo Julio photographed the split-second flyby. "I traveled 250 km to be in the path of the transit," he says. "It occurred just as predicted by CalSky."

The sunspot near the bottom of Julio's picture is AR1618. Although the sunspot is in decay, its magnetic field still harbors energy for strong eruptions. NOAA forecasters estimate a 30% chance of M-class flares and a 5% chance of X-flares during the next 24 hours.

TARDY CME: A CME expected to hit Earth's magnetic field on Nov. 24th ... then Nov. 25th ... is now expected to arrive on Nov. 26th. The tardy cloud is probably moving too slowly to spark strong geomagnetic storms when it eventually reaches our planet. PRESTO! A HUGE SUNSPOT: Yesterday, sunspot AR1620 was barely visible. Today it is a behemoth wider than a half-dozen planet Earths. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded the sunspot's rapid growth in a period of less than 20 hours on Nov. 25-26: AR1620 has a beta-gamma magnetic field that harbors energy for strong flares. Because of the sunspot's proximty to the center of the solar disk, Earth would be in the line of fire of any eruptons. NOAA forecasters estimate a 30% chance of M-class solar flares in the next 24 hours Solar wind speed: 520.3

BIG SUNSPOT KEEPS GROWING: Sunspot AR1620 doubled in size again yesterday. It is now a behemoth almost 10 times as wide as Earth. A movie from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory shows the sunspot materializing over the past 48 hours:

This sunspot has a 'beta-gamma' magnetic field that harbors energy for strong flares. NOAA forecasters estimate a 35% chance of M-class eruptions in the next 24 hours. Earth might not be in the line of fire, however, because the sunspot is approaching the sun's western limb. Solar wind speed: 435.1

December 1, 2012 – SUN - A mysterious spike in atmospheric carbon-14 levels 12 centuries ago might be a sign the Sun is capable of producing solar storms dozens of times worse than anything we’ve ever seen, a team of physicists calculates in a paper published this week in Nature. Carbon-14 (14C) is created when high-energy radiation strikes the Earth’s upper atmosphere, converting nitrogen-14 into 14C, which eventually makes its way into plants via photosynthesis. Earlier this year, a team of Japanese physicists discovered a spike in 14C in tree rings of Japanese cedars dating from the 774–75 growing season. But they were unable to explain where that 14C might have come from because all possible explanations appeared unlikely. But Adrian Melott, a physicist at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, who is the lead author of the new study, says that the Japanese team made a miscalculation in ruling out one of these possibilities — a giant solar storm. The problem, Melott says, is that the Japanese team treated solar storms as if they shone like light bulbs, radiating energy uniformly in all directions. But actually, they produce ‘blobs’ of energetic plasma that explode outwards unevenly. Adjusting for that, he says, reduces the size of the solar storm needed to produce the observed 14C spike from 1,000 times larger than anything known, to only 10–20 times larger — meaning that a giant solar storm is suddenly back on the table as a reasonable explanation. Furthermore, observations by NASA’s Kepler space telescope have found that Sun-like stars are capable of generating super-storms of this type every few hundred to 1,000 years. This doesn’t mean the Sun does the same, “but it suggests it’s reasonable”, Melott says. Other possible explanations for the spike seem unlikely. Radiation from a supernova explosion has enough power, but the supernova would have to have been within about 100 light years, Melott says. “Such an event would have been blindingly bright in the sky, much brighter than a full Moon. It would have been bright like that for months and could not have failed to be noted by every civilization on Earth.” Another possibility is a gamma-ray burst from a more distant supernova. But such bursts are rare and produce searchlight-like beams of radiation unlikely to hit us. “I don’t think it’s likely,” Melott says. If the 774–75 event was indeed a flare, it’s a disturbing find. Such a flare would be about 60 times more powerful than the 1989 solar storm that knocked out power to much of Quebec for nine hours on a cold winter night. Multiply that by 60 and add two decades of increased technological vulnerability, and the effects might be disastrous. “A lot of people could die,” Melott says. “You could have power out for months or longer — no refrigerated food, no food being transported to all the people who live in big cities.” –Nature

THE SCALE OF AMAZING: A slow but dense solar wind stream is buffeting Earth's magnetic field, igniting bright auroras around parts of the Arctic Circle. JUPITER AT OPPOSITION: Tonight, Dec. 2-3, Jupiter is at opposition--that is, directly opposite the sun. It rises at sunset and soars overhead at midnight. There is no better time to look at the giant planet, because this is the closest opposition of Jupiter until the year 2021.

RECTANGULAR SUNSPOT GROUP: Sunspot complex 1623-1625 has four dark cores that form a rectangle more than half-a-dozen Earths wide. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory photographed the shape on Dec. 1st: The quartet has a 'beta-gamma' magnetic field that harbors energy for M-class solar flares. Any eruptions this weekend would likely be geoeffective as the sunspot group is turning to face Earth.

QUIET SUN: For the third day in a row, solar activity is very low. All of the sunspots on the Earthside of the sun are quiet, leading NOAA forecasters to put the daily odds of strong flares at no more than 1%.

Catching Jupiter in a spoon is possible this month because Jupiter is having a close encounter with Earth--the closest until 2021. The giant planet rises in the east at sunset, brighter than any other "star" in the sky, so bright that its reflection can be found in unusual places. For readers who would like to try this at home, Lucena notes that he took the picture using an off-the-shelf digital camera set at ISO 400 for 8 seconds

SLIGHT CHANCE OF STORMS: NOAA forecasters estimate a 25% chance of polar geomagnetic storms on Dec. 7th and 8th in response to a possible glancing blow from a CME. Sky watchers in Scandinavia, Canada, and Alaska should be alert for auroras. The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) detected a cloud of plasma emerging from the blast site; however, Earth does not appear to be in the line of fire.

This event interrupted three days of low solar activity. With no sunspots currently flaring, the quiet appears set to resume. NOAA forecasters estimate a mere 1% chance of strong flares in the next 24 hours.

New sunspot AR1630 poses a threat for borderline M-class solar flares

ANOTHER ERUPTION MISSES EARTH: Magnetic fields around departing sunspot AR1621 became unstable and erupted during the late hours of Dec. 7th, hurling a bulb of plasma off the sun's western limb. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded its departure: Earth was not in the line of fire. No auroras or other space weather effects will be felt as a result of the blast.

Overall, solar activity is very low. The face of the sun is nearly blank (few sunspots) and NOAA forecasters estimate a slight 1% chance of strong flares during the next 24 hours

Solar wind flowing from this southern coronal hole should reach Earth on Dec. 16-17. Proton storm building up.

Information

The sun is a big mass of energy. The sun produces high energy protons, and the solar wind carries these protons towards our planet. However during solar flare activity, energetic protons are blown violently outwards.. sometimes towards earth. Energetic protons can reach Earth within 30 minutes of a major flare's peak. During such an event (big ones are also known as Solar Proton Events), Earth is showered with highly energetic solar particles (primarily protons) released from the flare site. When these protons arrive at Earth and enter the atmosphere over the polar regions, much enhanced ionization is produced at altitudes below 100 km. Ionization at these low altitudes is particularly effective in absorbing HF radio signals and can render HF communications impossible throughout the polar regions. This effect is called Radio Blackouts. This type of event is also known as a Polar Cap Absorption Event or PCA.

Radiation Storms

A solar radiation storm happens when an explosion (Solar Flare) on the Sun accelerates solar protons toward Earth. These protons stream past our planet where they are (mostly) deflected by Earth's protected magnetic field. There are five Radiation Storm Warning class levels issued by the Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC). Each are listed below.

S5 - Extreme
S4 - Severe
S3 - Strong
S2 - Moderate
S1 - Minor

QUIET SUN, BUT NOT FOR LONG? For the second week in a row, solar activity remains very low, but a new group of sunspots could be poised to break the quiet. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory observed the phalanx of dark cores emerging over the sun's southeastern limb on Dec. 15th: It is too soon to say whether these spots have potential for strong flares. We'll know more in a few days when they turn toward Earth, offering a clearer view of their magnetic architecture. Meanwhile, NOAA forecasters have boosted the odds of an M-class eruption to 10% on Dec. 16th

LUNAR IMPACTS TODAY: NASA's twin lunar gravity probes, nickhamed Ebb and Flow, will collide with a mountain near the Moon's north pole today, Dec. 17, at 5:28 pm EST. Get the full story from Science@NASA.

SOLAR WIND: Earth is entering a stream of high-speed solar wind. The source of the wind, a coronal hole on the sun, is shown in this image taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory during the early hours of Dec. 17th: A coronal hole is a place in the sun's atmosphere where the solar magnetic field opens up and allows solar wind to escape. This particular coronal hole is located far down in the sun's southern's hemisphere, so the stream it is emitting is not heading directly for our planet. To some degree, this will mitigate its impact on Earth. At the moment, NOAA forecasters are estimating a relatively slight 20% chance of geomagnetic storms.

MAGNETIC FROTH: None of the spots on the Earthside of the sun is actively flaring. Instead, they are frothing.How long will the quiet last? The sun has not produced a major flare in weeks. NOAA forecasters say the trend is unlikely to change today with only a slim 15% chance of M-flares and a 1% chance of X-class flares.

FARSIDE SOLAR ACTIVITY: The Earthside of the sun remains quiet, but the farside is growing restless. During the late hours of Dec. 20th and continuing through Dec. 21st, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) has recorded a series of CMEs flying over the solar limb: The source of the clouds appears to be multiple blast sites on the farside of the sun. This means Earth is not in the line of fire. The increasing pace of farside activity, however, suggests that the Earthside might not be far behind.

FIRST METEOR SHOWER OF 2013: Earth is about to pass through a stream of debris from 2003 EH1, a comet fragment that produces the annual Quadrantid meteor shower. The shower peaks on Thursday, January 3rd, probably during a few-hour period around 5 am PST (1300 UT). At maximum, as many as 100 meteors/hour could emerge from a radiant near Polaris, the north star. Unfortunately, glare from a waning gibbous moon will wash out many Quadrantids, reducing the visibility of the display. [live meteor radar]

FIRST AURORAS OF 2013: A stream of solar wind hit Earth's magnetic field on Dec. 31st, setting the stage for the first auroras of 2013.