Solar Cycle 25 Still Flaring Around with US!

[Robert VA3ROM]

Good afternoon to all,

There have been two X-class (X2.5) solar flares, followed by two M-class flares. Hopefully, some Earth-strike-zone CMEs will juice things up, but it all depends on the orbital mechanics involved. Right now, https://rigreference.com/solar has only current space weather R3 radio blackouts with no G-level storms in the 24-hour forecast, just R2 radio blackouts. I really like the new design and the new neat real-time solar panel.

The strong-to-severe thunderstorm season has started up very early for us up here, but it's how we got our name (le Baie du Tonnere, from the 18th-century French Voyageurs). Storms up here on the Big Lake scared the crap out of them because they really get amplified by the geography. But it's not a good thing to have outdoor antennas connected to feedlines going into the house. So I have to keep an eye on Blitzortung. As a former aviation weather observer, I spotted a small opening between the northern Ontario and southern storm fronts (Duluth area) as the Big Lake "nose" split the systems. I didn't want to miss catching more flares after the first X2.5, so I kept my W6LVP look on the air and grounded my vertical and dipole antennas. A vertical loop sitting only 2m off the ground is a less likely target, and less likely to be bothered by the EMI that a ground strike or cloud-to-cloud burst 50-100 km away could generate. But I have blown up my share of electronics during thunderstorms!

Here are the current plots for 5, 10 and 15 MHz WWV signals as received in Thunder Bay from  http://va3rom.com/WWV/WWV.html.

[Jonathan]

These solar flares also had an influence on the D layer with Sudden Ionospheric Disturbances seen at VLF. NML at 25.2 kHz had a nice response:

showing the flare at ~13:00UT and ~18:00UT as well. In VLF, SIDs normally cause an enhancement in propagation as seen at ~13:00UT but sometimes cause a diminishing in propagation as seen at ~18:00UT. In both flares, you can see a change in absolute phase of around ~+50 degrees! These observations emphasize the importance of a GNSS PPS used in the Whistler Catcher.

NAA at 24 kHz had observable SIDs as well:

with observations of some of the smaller flares as well.

Jonathan

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