[Lowfer] Solar activity

[John Andrews]

All,

As of this writing, there has been no CME arrival from the X2 solar 
flare on the 15th. Something totally unrelated arrived earlier in the 
week and depressed LF conditions a bit, but indicators like the Dst 
index are recovering nicely. So there has been no big event affecting LF 
propagation, yet. It's possible that the big CME and a couple of earlier 
small ones could arrive later today, and that will be worth watching for 
both aurora and depressed LF conditions starting in 1-2 days.

As Jay and I have frequently suggested, Alan Melia (G3NYK) has a wealth 
of LF propagation-related information on his web site:
http://www.alan.melia.btinternet.co.uk/
The articles on this main site are specifically aimed at LF work, and 
while they in some cases have simplifying assumptions, his track record 
over the last 10 years or more has been very good. No PHD is needed to 
learn this stuff!

In particular, Alan's rolling forecasts are very useful:
http://www.alan.melia.btinternet.co.uk/latest.htm#Latest%20Propagation%20Report
Alan deserves your encouragement to keep this service going. He gets a 
bit discouraged from time to time that nobody is paying attention!

There are a number of good sources for watching solar activity, and it's 
effect on the Earth. Try http://www.spaceweather.com/ for a starter. 
Much more detailed info is available from NOAA at:
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ . A good 3-day forecast is in their "popular 
pages" drop-down.

Once you get the hang of the info on Alan's site, the Dst index data:
http://swdc234.kugi.kyoto-u.ac.jp/dst_realtime/presentmonth/index.html
from Kyoto is a great indicator of the strength of a CME impact or 
coronal hole flow, and of our magnetosphere's recovery over a period of 
days.

John, W1TAG