Major geomagnetic storm in progress

[David G. McGaw]

There was a major solar flare yesterday and its CME has arrived.  We
have a G4 geomagnetic storm already in progress with Kp=8 already and a
possibility of it escalating to G5.  Watch for Northern Lights tonight
and chaotic Doppler shifts!

73,

David N1HAC

[Robert Mattaliano]

Hi Drew,

Yes it was a very interesting last week.  Perhaps someone can do a recap?  

This might be really helpful for those of us (e.g., me) who admire the beauty of our DRF plots but may not always understand what they mean when a something out of the ordinary occurs.  My plots attached.

Thanks and 73,

Bob N6RFM

[Chris C]

I was able to get some photos of the Aurora from the PA/NJ border. 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/MZEjMdYPkoRWQX656

Chris Callie
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Mail: redd...@gmail.com
Cell:  610.628.0522

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[HETZAL HARTLEY]

I got a photo of the source.

Yahoo Mail: Search, Organize, Conquer

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[Robert Mattaliano]

Thanks Chris for sharing.  Spectacular!

Bob

N6RFM

[Robert Mattaliano]

Regarding my question above, I threw it to the wolves in ChatGPT - here's that result

"The GRAPE WWV 10 MHz data show a sudden, large-scale ionospheric compression on 19 January, marked by an abrupt Doppler shift and signal enhancement consistent with a storm onset. This was followed by hours of strong vertical turbulence and traveling ionospheric disturbances. By 21 January, the ionosphere had entered a recovery phase characterized by sustained oscillations and reduced stability rather than a return to quiet conditions. The data clearly capture both the impulsive impact and the long-duration relaxation of the mid-latitude F-layer."

See attached summary.  Is this reasonably accurate?  

Thanks,

Bob

N6RFM//5

On Sunday, January 25, 2026 at 10:35:31 AM UTC-6 het...@cox.net wrote:

[Andrew Rodland]

I believe the "sudden jump" at ~1330Z is a little thing called sunrise. The CME passage was a bit after 1900Z. It did at least highlight something going on there.

[Robert Mattaliano]

Thanks reading it Andrew!  The 10eX (and counting) cautionary tale of taking ChatGPT literally!

[Andrew Rodland]

Yup. The thing is, you can get good results out of it, but the more you know going in, the better results you can expect coming out. Think of it this way: ChatGPT may have "read" a thousand articles on iono phenomena and be able to make some amount of logical inference from causes, to effects, to how they would appear on a plot. But it has never seen a GRAPE plot before and it doesn't immediately know how to read one. Without prompting, it's not likely to make the connection that a sudden jump in magnitude and a lowering of hmF2 happens at sunrise, and without prompting it doesn't know *when* the sun rises over the path between you and Fort Collins anyway. The context that it does have is that you told it that some kind of geomagnetic event was happening, so it interprets everything in light of that. And we all know that these things have a bias towards overconfidence.

So for best results, 1) give it plenty of context, 2) question its results whenever they seem fishy or insufficiently justfied, 3) ask it in advance to explain its reasoning step-by-step. Just like humans, when it has to explain it's more likely to catch itself in an error rather than dig itself further in.

[Gwyn Griffiths]

Hello Bob

 These Grape plots are indeed beautiful: in part for showing complexity and several features of propagation simultaneously.  For instance on the 19th, I'd add to Andrew's note on sunrise ~1330 that the short-lived lower amplitude (yellow) upward-curling feature is likely the higher-elevation ray showing its presence.

Weaker still, even before sunrise, the near zero-Doppler trace is showing propagation via the E region. E region propagation persists after F region propagation kicks in. It is there until ~2045 or so. While the F region trace is showing large Doppler, the E region Doppler is steady. The explanation of why is beyond me. The E region propagation disappears after ca 2045 - likely due to increased absorption, perhaps in part due to normal middle-of-the-day local time phenomenon.

73

Gwyn G3ZIL

[Architect of the Risk Flux Framework]

From 21-23 H, the volatility of the frequency and severity of TID Jumps went up in direct proportion to the amount of energy received.   The speed of the volatility of TIDs was also rising.

Can this fluctuation in the ionosphere be mapped to one of the 192 GPS-LEO combinations from the  COSMIC-2 Data Near Real-Time Operational Datasets, Absolute total electron content (podTc2 format) (GLONASS from February 1, 2021 onwards)?

Warm regards,

Lawrence Habahbeh

Chair, Black Swan Insurance Working Party | Member, IFoA Risk Management Board 

Architect of the Risk Flux Framework

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[Robert Mattaliano]

Thank you Gwyn,

Really appreciate your response!  I clearly need to go back an look at more the literature and HamSci workshop YouTube videos .  And re-read your posters (e.g., on sunrise events from 2025)!

73, 

Bob N6RFM