Space Weather, Auroras, Solar Flares and CMEs

[Parsons]

Wow, I almost fell out of my chair when I got to work today and checked spaceweather.com. There is by far the strongest geomagnetic storm I have ever seen since I started monitoring space weather about 4 years ago. Right now, the storm is at a G4 storm on a scale of up to G5. There WILL be some crazy awesome aurora pics in the following days. If you are in Norway or other northern European countries / Russia, there must be incredibly bright auroras right now.

CME IMPACT, SEVERE GEOMAGNETIC STORM: Arriving earlier than expected, a CME hit Earth's magnetic field on March 17th at approximately 04:30 UT. At first, the impact sparked a relatively mild G1-class (Kp=5) geomagnetic storm. Since then, however, the storm has intensified to G4-class (Kp=8), ranking it as the strongest geomagnetic storm of the current solar cycle. This storm is underway now. Before sunrise, bright auroras were sighted over several northern-tier US states including Minnesota, Wisconsin, Montana, the Dakotas and Washington. Marketa Murray sends this picture from Dalton Highway in Alaska:



"The auroras were insane," says Marketa who regularly runs a photography workshop on the Arctic Circle. She has seen a lot of auroras. "I have never seen anything like this."

This storm could continue for many hours to come as Earth passes through the turbulent wake of the CME.

Real Time Aurora Gallery