Recent Geomagnetic Storms

[Mr. TSP]

With the severe geomagnetic storminess of the last few days, how has or has your reception been affected? The K index is still at 6 as of 1500 UTC on the 9th (today) and it looks like there is still a good chance for this to continue for the next few days. I have not had my GPS on in a few days.

 

Any thoughts?

[+greende]

Found six caches out of six on Saturday (11/6/04) with no problems. It did, however, make for good viewing of the Aurora!

[+fly46]

With the severe geomagnetic storminess of the last few days, how has or has your reception been affected? The K index is still at 6 as of 1500 UTC on the 9th (today) and it looks like there is still a good chance for this to continue for the next few days. I have not had my GPS on in a few days.

 

Any thoughts?

You know, if that made any sense to me, then maybe, just maybe, I'd have been affected. lol.

 

Seriously, though, I haven't been caching in a few days, but last time I did I actually managed to almost zero out.

[+vree]

I'll go ahead and use it as an excuse for my extra wanderings on Sunday, which was the last day I cached...

[+EScout]

Product: Geophysical Alert Message wwv.txt

:Issued: 2004 Nov 10 0002 UTC

# Prepared by the US Dept. of Commerce, NOAA, Space Environment Center

#

# Geophysical Alert Message

#

Solar-terrestrial indices for 09 November follow.

Solar flux 127 and mid-latitude A-index 91.

The mid-latitude K-index at 0000 UTC on 10 November was 7 (232 nT).

 

Space weather for the past 24 hours has been severe.

Geomagnetic storms reaching the G4 level occurred.

Solar radiation storms reaching the S1 level occurred.

Radio blackouts reaching the R2 level occurred.

 

Space weather for the next 24 hours is expected to be strong.

Geomagnetic storms reaching the G3 level are expected.

Solar radiation storms reaching the S1 level are expected.

Radio blackouts reaching the R2 level are expected.

 

How do you like these numbers? I have not seen a problem though.

[+Shop99er]

Product: Geophysical Alert Message wwv.txt

:Issued: 2004 Nov 10 0002 UTC

# Prepared by the US Dept. of Commerce, NOAA, Space Environment Center

#

# Geophysical Alert Message

#

Solar-terrestrial indices for 09 November follow.

Solar flux 127 and mid-latitude A-index 91.

The mid-latitude K-index at 0000 UTC on 10 November was 7 (232 nT).

 

Space weather for the past 24 hours has been severe.

Geomagnetic storms reaching the G4 level occurred.

Solar radiation storms reaching the S1 level occurred.

Radio blackouts reaching the R2 level occurred.

 

Space weather for the next 24 hours is expected to be strong.

Geomagnetic storms reaching the G3 level are expected.

Solar radiation storms reaching the S1 level are expected.

Radio blackouts reaching the R2 level are expected.

English translation, please?

[+evergreenhiker!]

Product: Geophysical Alert Message wwv.txt

:Issued: 2004 Nov 10 0002 UTC

# Prepared by the US Dept. of Commerce, NOAA, Space Environment Center

#

#          Geophysical Alert Message

#

Solar-terrestrial indices for 09 November follow.

Solar flux 127 and mid-latitude A-index 91.

The mid-latitude K-index at 0000 UTC on 10 November was 7 (232 nT).

 

Space weather for the past 24 hours has been severe.

Geomagnetic storms reaching the G4 level occurred.

Solar radiation storms reaching the S1 level occurred.

Radio blackouts reaching the R2 level occurred.

 

Space weather for the next 24 hours is expected to be strong.

Geomagnetic storms reaching the G3 level are expected.

Solar radiation storms reaching the S1 level are expected.

Radio blackouts reaching the R2 level are expected.

English translation, please?

Yes in English please!

[+Smitherington]

Those things that happen far away (near the Sun) and cause the Northern Lights, radio interference, etc.

[+Shop99er]

I understand how the Aurora is formed. I took science in school, too.

 

What I'm asking for is the English version of the to me, gibberish.

 

I didn't say I was REAL good at science.

Edited November 10, 2004 by Shop99er

[+sixfoottroll]

Howdy all,

 

I got out of work tonight at 11:00, and on my way home I noticed the Northern Lights were active. I hurried home and changed, then headed out to watch them. I am in Central New York where it is presently 18 degrees, so I wasn't out very long. However, the Lights were very active, and well worth the chill.

 

I got curious and turned on my GPS unit. Now, I was on a hill...almost the highest point in the county(1804 Ft.), not a tree within 200 yards, crystal clear sky...and tracking about 7 satelites. I COULD NOT GET A STEADY READING ON NORTH!!

 

Does anybody know if this was because of the Aurora Borealis?

 

sixfoottroll

[+Renegade Knight]

If the Northern Lights have EMF it's possible. They are caused by the solar wind, that's charged particles so I would imagine is is possible.

[+Spiritnip]

Definitely could cause a disturbance in North. The solar winds push against the Earths protective magnetic field sort of bending it from it's normal egg like shape. I wish I could see the Nothern Lights form here

[+New England n00b]

If the Northern Lights have EMF it's possible.  They are caused by the solar wind, that's charged particles so I would imagine is is possible.

Dunno about this. My Dad was in the Navy (as a pilot) and flew in Alaska. He never mentioned a problem, but this was back aroun dthe time of the Cuban missile crisis, so no GPS satellites to mess with. I'll have to ask him if the Aurora messed up his instrumentation any...

[+EScout]

Perhaps someone who is an expert can explain it, but until then, I will try.

 

The K index is a measure of the state of the geomagnetic field, on a scale of 0 to 9, where 0 is the lowest and 9 is the most disturbed. A minor storm usually shows a 5, major storm shows a 6 or higher, and a severe storm is a 7 or higher.

 

Caused by solar flares (particle emissions from the sun), the disturbances mostly affect high-Frequency radio transmissions used by amateur radio operators and others. For example, I just tuned the entire 20M band (14 MHz) and did not hear one station. These communications are dependent on F2 layer ionization which is depleted during these events.

 

The GPS signals are much higher frequencies, and are direct reception, straight through the ionosphere, are not absorbed, and so I do not think are very affected, especially at mid latitudes.

 

Latest K chart

[+fizzymagic]

The Northern Lights are usually the result of a solar flare, which causes a geomagnetic storm. The primary effect on GPS receivers is the change in the thickness of the ionosphere. GPS receivers have to correct for the signal propagation delay through the ionosphere, which is most important during the day. Most GPS receivers have to use a model of the ionosphere that only depends on time of day and lat/long. It doesn't work well during geomagnetic storms.

 

For the next couple of days, I would recommend using WAAS if at all possible. WAAS will correct for ionospheric disturbances that have a reasonably long time constant. Short-term fluctuations (on the order of minutes) can still be a problem.

Edited November 10, 2004 by fizzymagic

[davwil]

My understanding of what is happening right now with the Northern Lights is that there was a huge CME (Coronal Mass Ejection) ie: flare, in the last few days.

 

When I was more active in amateur radio (I'm VE1WL) we used to point our antennas North and try to make contact by bouncing signals off the lights.

 

They (the Northern lights) are actually a portion of the atmosphere that is highly ionized and act like a huge reflector, like a curtain of tinfoil. Pilots and other users of HF Radio (shortwave) notice a phenomenom called "Auroral Flutter" which causes a funny sounding twitter to be added to the audio quality of the signal.

 

My guess is that the signal received by a GPS receiver may suffer the same problem and get mixed signals from the satellites as they get reflected by the Northern Lights.

 

Dave.

 

edit: Fizzy is right too.

Edited November 10, 2004 by davwil

[Keystone]

Hello,

 

I merged the duplicate topic, started by sixfoottroll, into this existing topic.

[nobby.nobbs]

i can only think it's related to this... iwent out today in england. perfect sunshine no clouds. no tree cover open sky and a gps that was trying to make me belive i was running round in circles while stood still!

[+Mosaica]

I love it when various of my obsessions come together.. I was out doing a couple of new local caches when I found a couple of great spots from which to attempt photographing the possible auroral storms. Thirteen or so hours after finding the cache, I drove back and set up my camera. It was around 2:30 in the morning, and the storm was fantastic. I posted a few images to the two caches I visited:

 

<a href='http://img.Groundspeak.com/cache/log/64f44fab-3a50-41cd-bc33-4fa48bb10a3d.jpg' target='_blank'>November 9 aurora with meteor</a>

 

<a href='http://img.Groundspeak.com/cache/log/e161886a-34ac-4a85-a25f-b0beeb84a28b.jpg' target='_blank'>November 11 pre-dawn aurora</a>

 

More spaceweather, less terrestrial weather!

 

../Mosaica

[+Mosaica]

Hsm, my html didn't succeed much. Oh well :-)

 

../Mosaica

[+vree]

November 9 aurora with meteor

November 11 pre-dawn aurora

 

Here are some fixed links.

Those are great, Mosaica!

[+junglehair]

I was out searching for this cache on Tuesday evening around 11:00 p.m. (Rochester, NY). Had no problems with the GPS reception. I was testing out the Nextel i860 phone with Trimble Outdoors (GPS enabled phone).

 

The Northern Lights were amazing that night. Not very colourful at this latitude, but they were dancing across the sky for at least 10 minutes, and very bright too!

[rebapac]

 

Here in southern California, we wern't affected either. I have never seen the Northern Lights. It has to be spectacular and someday maybe I will.

[Azaruk]

This is fascinating! It never crossed my mind that solar anomalies could have an effect on the GPS constellation and perhaps introduce errors.

 

I met up with a colleague over the weekend who joined me when I was placing a cache.

 

I left my GPSr on a convenient tree stump to happily and diligently average for a while. Come the time to log the co-ords, I noticed that there were different readings (not by much - but still different) on our GPS receivers.

 

We watched them both for quite a while thereafter, and about 10 minutes or so later, they both displayed the same readings.

 

Could this have been caused by the events mentioned? Why would there be different readings on two units in close proximity?

 

I would have thought that if the 'storms' caused disruptions to system, they would be consistent for any given area on the earth's surface.

 

Thanks for the original post, I have learned something new - and that is always a good thing!