Space Weather News for August 1, 2010
http://spaceweather.com
GLOBAL ERUPTION: During the early hours of August 1st, NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded a complex global disturbance on the Earth-facing side of the sun. Most of the sun's northern hemisphere was involved in the event, which included a long-duration C3-class solar flare, a "solar tsunami," and a massive filament eruption. As a result of these blasts, a coronal mass ejection (CME) is heading toward Earth. High-latitude geomagnetic storms and auroras are possible when the cloud arrives a few days hence. Check http://spaceweather.com for movies and updates.
Those Coronal Mass Ejections can really play havoc with HF communications. I remember when I was doing the "QSO a Day" thing back in 2006. We endured a few CMEs and I thought those were going to be "streak breakers" for me. Fortunately, by calling CQ long enough, I was able to establish communications via ground wave and was able to keep the streak intact.
In a day or so, HF conditions will probably deteriorate. However, aurora will probably be visible at the higher latitudes.
Should be interesting.
72 de Larry W2LJ
I remember experiencing this sort of event back in the early 1980's. HF was dead for days. Difference was flux and spots much higher so when the storm effects ceased, was a return to fine propagatio0n. Not so this time.
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