Will it ever end? Yes in another year or so. As all radio enthusiasts know
band conditions from LF, MF to HF have been fair at best and very poor at
worst for many days, thanks to recurrent Coronal Hole #066. #066 has been a
prolific pain in the ionosphere between 11/08/03 and 11/19/03, that's 12
miserable days of geomagnetic storming with a peak in the Kp of 6 and an Ap
of 095. Actually this is the third pass around the Sun that this particular
Coronal Hole has wreaked havoc. As #063 in October 2003 it produced a Kp of
6 and Ap of 106, as #059 in September 2003 it produced a Kp of 5 and Ap of
54. Now that #066 has lost it's grip on Earth's magnetic field all should be
quiet, WRONG.
The monster record breaking sunspot group regions # 10484, 10486 and 10488
are back in view again, this time as #'s 10501, 10507 and 10508. As follows
are their current location and magnetic complexity.
10501 2003.11.13 22 20 N03W05 0380 DKO beta-gamma-delta
10507 2003.11.18 11 22 N10E62 0890 EKI beta-gamma-delta
10508 2003.11.19 5 19 S17E75 0700 EKO beta-gamma
Last month I said that I had a real bad feeling (unscientific) about #'s
10484, 10486 and 10488 before all heck broke loose.
I don't think we will see identical solar space and geomagnetic weather as
last time around it could still be very bad again.
All three sunspot groups are capable of very large M class solar flares,
with #'s 10507 and 10508 capable of huge X class flares and associated
Coronal Mass Ejections, day side radio blackouts, severe geomagnetic
storming, visible mid latitude Aurora and polar cap and mid latitude
absorption due to elevated energetic protons storms >10 MeV (10+o). Oh yeah
and if you have allot of fillings in your mouth they may heat up due to
induced currents.
Actually the sunspot groups are already wreaking havoc having produced seven
very large M class solar flares in the past three days, one of which was
just short of X class size at M9.6 beginning at 0747 UTC today. One
associated Coronal Mass Ejection has already begun impacting Earth's
magnetic field this morning with a Kp-6-7 (strong to major geomagnetic
storming) and an elevated energetic proton event. Also there are three or
four more Coronal mass Ejections headed for Earth as I write. As the
horizontal (Bz) part of our magnetic field is very negative at
approximately -50, our current geomagnetic storm may peak at a Kp of 9 which
is a G5 extreme level storm.
For those disinterested in all the physics discussed above, in simple layman
terms expect long periods of poor to very poor propagation conditions on
high and mid latitude paths, on night time LF and MF bands and day and night
time on the HF band. Even low latitude paths will be impacted in a negative
manner at times.
Due to the current geomagnetic storming I was not able to make scheduled
BPSK31 contacts on 80 and 160 meters in the past 12 hours with large
antennas and 100 watts. A sign of things to come.
73,
Thomas F. Giella, KN4LF
Plant City, FL, USA
EL87WX
Yaesu FT-840 & PSK31 Digital Mode E Group:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/yaesu_ft840
160 Meter Amateur Radio Resources & More: http://www.kn4lf.com/kn4lf.htm
Daily Solar Space Weather & Geomagnetic Data Archive:
http://www.kn4lf.com/kn4lf5.htm
HF/MF Radio Propagation Theory Notes: http://www.kn4lf.com/kn4lf8.htm
Florida Space & Atmospheric Weather Institute:
http://www.kn4lf.com/fsawi.htm
Friend Website Design: http://www.kn4lf.com
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