https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/alerts-watches-and-warnings
Space Weather Message Code: WATA99
Serial Number: 8
Issue Time: 2024 Oct 09 1233 UTC
WATCH: Geomagnetic Storm Category G4 or Greater Predicted
Highest Storm Level Predicted by Day:
Oct 10: G4 (Severe) Oct 11: G4 (Severe) Oct 12: G1 (Minor)
THIS SUPERSEDES ANY/ALL PRIOR WATCHES IN EFFECT
NOAA Space Weather Scale descriptions can be found at
www.swpc.noaa.gov/noaa-scales-explanation
Potential Impacts: Area of impact primarily poleward of 45 degrees Geomagnetic Latitude. Induced Currents - Possible widespread voltage control problems and some protective systems may mistakenly trip out key assets from the power grid. Induced pipeline currents intensify.
Spacecraft - Systems may experience surface charging; increased drag on low earth orbit satellites, and tracking and orientation problems may occur.
Navigation - Satellite navigation (GPS) degraded or inoperable for hours.
Radio - HF (high frequency) radio propagation sporadic or blacked out.
Aurora - Aurora may be seen as low as Alabama and northern California.
I saw it for the first time during May’s storm, which made bright red/purple ones above the Wyoming-Colorado border after 22:00. They’re remarkable and if you’re within the right latitude range it’s worth finding the nearest dark sky area to watch them: https://www.darkskymap.com/nightSkyBrightness
edit: also me right now-
Radio - HF (high frequency) radio propagation sporadic or blacked out.
Good thing there isn’t some other natural disaster happening in, oh, say, Florida that will cause problems with hardline and mobile communications and will require emergency radios to work reliably.
Florida is pretty far below 45degrees latitude so they should be fine.
Recently some indications have appeared that several purely meteorological processes in the terrestrial atmosphere are dependent upon magnetosphere variations. To analyse the possible relationship with North Atlantic hurricane intensiÆcation, the authors examine geomagnetic data for ten days prior to all hurricanes over the last 50 years (1950± 1999). A signiÆcant positive correlation between the averaged Kp index of global geomagnetic activity and hurricane intensity as measured by maximum sustained wind speed is identiÆed for baroclinically-initiated hurricanes. Results are consistent with a mechanism whereby ionization processes trigger glaciation at cloud top which leads to hurricane intensiÆcation through upper tropospheric latent heat release.
fascinating.
I wonder what the effect would be if this hit Tuesday-Wednesday instead of Thursday-Friday when the hurricane is waning. It seems like we just dodged a big bullet.
