In the early morning hours UTC time of August 3rd a magnitude M 9.3 solar flare ripped off the sun’s corona. This massive event had been preceded by a couple smaller M class flares earlier in the day. We took one of the first CMEs from the sequence last night, but the M 9.3 being faster caught the earlier M 5 and they are both crashing into our magnetosphere in terms of right now
The Kp index which measures the amount of geomagnetic activity is currently at 8. (This had first read 9, that was wrong.)
Solar Ham where I get my space weather this link will take you to a tracking of the K index
The K-index is a code that is related to the maximum fluctuations of horizontal components observed on a magnetometer relative to a quiet day, during a three-hour interval. The conversion table from maximum fluctuation (nT) to K-index, varies from observatory to observatory in such a way that the historical rate of occurrence of certain levels of K are about the same at all observatories. In practice this means that observatories at higher geomagnetic latitude require higher levels of fluctuation for a given K-index.
NOAA Spaceweather Prediction Center
What that means is AURORAS!
this link shows a depiction aurora activity and as you can see the oval is heading pretty far down southward!
Check the aurora map!
Oh boy is it going to be a fun night for those in the north!
This is a Youtube of the original event of August 3rd.
4:36 PM PT: Great Scott! I had G5 in the title and the K index at 9 and it is at 8. A G5 and a 9 would be a pretty staggering event and entering Carrington event size and we do not want to speak that into the universe, talk about a disaster we can't take right now.
4:55 PM PT: Hat tip to imafrayedknot who suggested I include some of the challenges associated with a storm of this size. This information is right from the NOAA site for a G3 storm. It is characterized as STRONG with severe and extreme above those levels.
Power systems: possible widespread voltage control problems and some protective systems will mistakenly trip out key assets from the grid.
Spacecraft operations: may experience surface charging and tracking problems, corrections may be needed for orientation problems.
Other systems: induced pipeline currents affect preventive measures, HF radio propagation sporadic, satellite navigation degraded for hours, low-frequency radio navigation disrupted, and aurora has been seen as low as Alabama and northern California (typically 45° geomagnetic lat.)**.
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/...
5:14 PM PT: From Spaceweather
A major geomagnetic storm is in progress following the impact of a CME on August 5th around 1800 UT. Sky watchers at all latitudes should be alert for auroras after nightfall. Tip: the best hours for aurora sightings are usually around local midnight.
http://www.spaceweather.com/