[OKDXA] OKDXA Digest, Vol 188, Issue 5

Wed May 13 18:32:40 EDT 2020

*While I was to to young to remember my mother was left speechless when my
diaper began flashing past colors.*

*Der Frogmeister........................*

On Wed, May 13, 2020 at 3:33 PM <okdxa-request at mailman.qth.net> wrote:

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> Today's Topics:
>
>    1. The Great Geomagnetic Storm of 1921 (Kim Elmore)
>    2. Re: The Great Geomagnetic Storm of 1921 (Peter Laws N5UWY)
>    3. Re: The Great Geomagnetic Storm of 1921 (D C _Mac_ Macdonald)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 13 May 2020 09:41:58 -0500
> From: Kim Elmore <cw_de_n5op at sbcglobal.net>
> To: Oklahoma DX Association <okdxa at mailman.qth.net>
> Subject: [OKDXA] The Great Geomagnetic Storm of 1921
> Message-ID: <0f436206-7de3-69d6-7495-0ac4d4d1432d at sbcglobal.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"; Format="flowed"
>
> This from a friend that, while not a ham, has a lot of interest in
> astrophysics.
>
> 73,
>
> Kim N5OP
>
> *THE GREAT GEOMAGNETIC STORM OF MAY 1921: *99 years ago this week,
> people around the world woke up to some unusual headlines.
>
> "Telegraph Service Prostrated, Comet Not to Blame" ? declared the Los
> Angeles Times on May 15, 1921. "Electrical Disturbance is 'Worst Ever
> Known'? ? reported the Chicago Daily Tribune. "Sunspot credited with
> Rail Tie-up" ? deadpanned the New York Times.
>
> <https://spaceweather.com/images2020/11may20/newspapers2.jpg>
>
> They didn?t know it at the time, but the newspapers were covering the
> biggest solar storm of the 20th Century. Nothing quite like it has
> happened since.
>
> It began on May 12, 1921 when giant sunspot AR1842, crossing the sun
> during the declining phase of Solar Cycle 15, began to flare. One
> explosion after another hurled coronal mass ejections (CMEs) directly
> toward Earth. For the next 3 days, CMEs rocked Earth?s magnetic field.
> Scientists around the world were surprised when their magnetometers
> suddenly went offscale, pens in strip chart recorders pegged uselessly
> to the top of the paper.
>
> Then the fires began. Around 02:00 GMT on May 15th, a telegraph exchange
> in Sweden burst into flames. About an hour later, the same thing
> happened across the Atlantic in the village of Brewster, New York.
> Flames engulfed the switch-board at the Brewster station of the Central
> New England Railroad and quickly spread to destroy the whole building.
> That fire, along with another one about the same time in a railroad
> control tower near New York City's Grand Central Station, is why the
> event is sometimes referred to as the "New York Railroad Superstorm."
>
> What caused the fires? Electrical currents induced by geomagnetic
> activity surged through telephone and telegraph lines, heating them to
> the point of combustion. Strong currents disrupted telegraph systems in
> Australia, Brazil, Denmark, France, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden,
> the UK and USA. The Ottawa Journal reported that many long-distance
> telephone lines in New Brunswick were burned out by the storm. On some
> telegraph lines in the USA voltages spiked as high as 1000 V.
>
> <https://spaceweather.com/images2020/11may20/sunspotar1842.jpg>
> *Above:* Sunspot AR1842 on May 13, 1921. [more
> <https://www.ann-geophys.net/33/109/2015/angeo-33-109-2015.pdf>]
>
> During the storm's peak on May 15th, southern cities like Los Angeles
> and Atlanta felt like Fairbanks, with Northern Lights dancing overhead
> while telegraph lines crackled with geomagnetic currents. Auroras were
> seen in the USA as far south as Texas while, in the Pacific, red auroras
> were sighted from Samoa and Tonga and ships at sea crossing the equator.
>
> What would happen if such a storm occurred today?
>
> Researchers have long grappled with that question?most recently in a
> pair of in-depth papers published in the journal /Space Weather/: "The
> Great Storm of May 1921: An Exemplar of a Dangerous Space Weather Event
> <https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2019SW002195>" by
> Mike Hapgood (Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, UK) and "Intensity and
> Impact of the New York Railroad Superstorm of May 1921
> <https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2019SW002250>"
> by Jeffrey Love (US Geological Survey) and colleagues.
>
> The summary, above, is largely a result of Hapgood?s work. He
> painstakingly searched historical records including scientific journals,
> newspaper clippings, and other reports to create a moment-by-moment
> timeline of the storm. Such timelines are invaluable to emergency
> planners, who can use them to prepare for future storms.
>
> <https://spaceweather.com/images2020/11may20/aurorasightings_big.png>
> *Above: *Aurora sightings in May 1921. The leftmost red circle marks
> Apia, Samoa.
>
> Jeffrey Love and colleagues also looked into the past and?jackpot!?they
> found some old magnetic chart recordings that did *not go offscale* when
> the May 1921 CMEs hit. Using the data, they calculated "/Dst/"
> (disturbance storm time index), a measure of geomagnetic activity
> favored by many space weather researchers.
>
> "The storm attained an estimated maximum ?/Dst/ on 15 May of 907 ? 132
> nT, an intensity comparable to that of the Carrington Event of 1859,"
> they wrote in their paper.
>
> This dry-sounding result upends conventional wisdom. Students of space
> weather have long been taught that the Carrington Event
> <https://www.swsc-journal.org/articles/swsc/pdf/2013/01/swsc130015.pdf>
> (-/Dst/ = 900 nT) was the strongest solar storm in recorded history. Now
> we know that the May 1921 storm was about equally intense.
>
> If the May 1921 storm hit today, "I?d expect it to lead to most, if not
> all, of the impacts outlined in the 2013 Royal Academy of Engineering
> report
> <
> https://www.raeng.org.uk/publications/reports/space-weather-summary-report>
>
> led by Paul Cannon," says Hapgood. "This could include regional power
> outages, profound changes to satellite orbits, and loss of radio-based
> technologies such as GPS. The disruption of GPS could significantly
> impact logistics and emergency services."
>
> It?s something to think about on the 99th anniversary of a 100-year storm?.
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Wed, 13 May 2020 09:54:20 -0500
> From: Peter Laws N5UWY <n5uwy at arrl.net>
> To: Oklahoma DX Association <okdxa at mailman.qth.net>
> Subject: Re: [OKDXA] The Great Geomagnetic Storm of 1921
> Message-ID:
>         <CANVAiQ_BnDw_QjxV2rRFh3=vDQ9gbTQDEPXz2XHc-HSSs=
> b7Bg at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
>
> On Wed, May 13, 2020 at 9:42 AM Kim Elmore <cw_de_n5op at sbcglobal.net>
> wrote:
> >
> > This from a friend that, while not a ham, has a lot of interest in
> > astrophysics.
> >
> > 73,
> >
> > Kim N5OP
>
> I'd heard of this primarily because of the RR connection.  Sort of
> stumbled across it a few years ago while googling around for stuff on
> the Carrington Event.  Read about stuff happening on the NY Central
> and realized that that road wasn't yet thing in 1859 and realized that
> I was reading about a different event.  Curious to see that the two
> events were about equal in intensity.
>
> A pandemic would be a good time for another, similar event to happen.
> Perhaps it would kill the Murder Bees or whatever they are.
>
> Interestingly, while power distribution systems would certainly be
> borked (google up the 1989 Quebec event) comm lines might fare better
> since most are non-metallic these days. Doesn't mean the devices
> attached to the fiber wouldn't be affected, but maybe with less of an
> "antenna" those devices might do better?
>
> Do gamma ray bursts next!  :-D
>
>
> --
> Peter Laws | N5UWY | plaws plaws net | Travel by Train!
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Wed, 13 May 2020 20:33:23 +0000
> From: D C _Mac_ Macdonald <k2gkk at hotmail.com>
> To: Oklahoma DX Association <okdxa at mailman.qth.net>
> Subject: Re: [OKDXA] The Great Geomagnetic Storm of 1921
> Message-ID:
>         <
> CY4PR16MB148046326ECE2C5F2BCDD423F1BF0 at CY4PR16MB1480.namprd16.prod.outlook.com
> >
>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> I don't remember the exact date, but in summer of 1967 I was stationed at
> Keesler AFB in Biloxi, MS.  I had bought my first boat and my parents were
> visiting.  We were out in the Gulf of Mexico at night and were treated to a
> marvelous display of aurora borealis while about 2 miles from shore.  I
> don't remember any particular hubbub about the causational storm.
>
> I also remember the summer of 1958 when I still lived at home and was
> dating a young lady in Warren, PA (just south of the NY border) and we
> watched the display in my 1950 Ford convertible with the top down.  I just
> didn't think anything really special about it at the time.
>
> 73 de Mac, K2GKK/5
> Since 30 Nov 1953
> Oklahoma City, OK
> USAF, Retired ('61-'81)
> FAA, Retired ('94-'10)
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: okdxa-bounces at mailman.qth.net <okdxa-bounces at mailman.qth.net> on
> behalf of Kim Elmore <cw_de_n5op at sbcglobal.net>
> Sent: Wednesday, May 13, 2020 09:41
> To: Oklahoma DX Association <okdxa at mailman.qth.net>
> Subject: [OKDXA] The Great Geomagnetic Storm of 1921
>
> This from a friend that, while not a ham, has a lot of interest in
> astrophysics.
>
> 73,
>
> Kim N5OP
>
> *THE GREAT GEOMAGNETIC STORM OF MAY 1921: *99 years ago this week,
> people around the world woke up to some unusual headlines.
>
> "Telegraph Service Prostrated, Comet Not to Blame" ? declared the Los
> Angeles Times on May 15, 1921. "Electrical Disturbance is 'Worst Ever
> Known'? ? reported the Chicago Daily Tribune. "Sunspot credited with
> Rail Tie-up" ? deadpanned the New York Times.
>
> <https://spaceweather.com/images2020/11may20/newspapers2.jpg>
>
> They didn?t know it at the time, but the newspapers were covering the
> biggest solar storm of the 20th Century. Nothing quite like it has
> happened since.
>
> It began on May 12, 1921 when giant sunspot AR1842, crossing the sun
> during the declining phase of Solar Cycle 15, began to flare. One
> explosion after another hurled coronal mass ejections (CMEs) directly
> toward Earth. For the next 3 days, CMEs rocked Earth?s magnetic field.
> Scientists around the world were surprised when their magnetometers
> suddenly went offscale, pens in strip chart recorders pegged uselessly
> to the top of the paper.
>
> Then the fires began. Around 02:00 GMT on May 15th, a telegraph exchange
> in Sweden burst into flames. About an hour later, the same thing
> happened across the Atlantic in the village of Brewster, New York.
> Flames engulfed the switch-board at the Brewster station of the Central
> New England Railroad and quickly spread to destroy the whole building.
> That fire, along with another one about the same time in a railroad
> control tower near New York City's Grand Central Station, is why the
> event is sometimes referred to as the "New York Railroad Superstorm."
>
> What caused the fires? Electrical currents induced by geomagnetic
> activity surged through telephone and telegraph lines, heating them to
> the point of combustion. Strong currents disrupted telegraph systems in
> Australia, Brazil, Denmark, France, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden,
> the UK and USA. The Ottawa Journal reported that many long-distance
> telephone lines in New Brunswick were burned out by the storm. On some
> telegraph lines in the USA voltages spiked as high as 1000 V.
>
> <https://spaceweather.com/images2020/11may20/sunspotar1842.jpg>
> *Above:* Sunspot AR1842 on May 13, 1921. [more
> <https://www.ann-geophys.net/33/109/2015/angeo-33-109-2015.pdf>]
>
> During the storm's peak on May 15th, southern cities like Los Angeles
> and Atlanta felt like Fairbanks, with Northern Lights dancing overhead
> while telegraph lines crackled with geomagnetic currents. Auroras were
> seen in the USA as far south as Texas while, in the Pacific, red auroras
> were sighted from Samoa and Tonga and ships at sea crossing the equator.
>
> What would happen if such a storm occurred today?
>
> Researchers have long grappled with that question?most recently in a
> pair of in-depth papers published in the journal /Space Weather/: "The
> Great Storm of May 1921: An Exemplar of a Dangerous Space Weather Event
> <https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2019SW002195>" by
> Mike Hapgood (Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, UK) and "Intensity and
> Impact of the New York Railroad Superstorm of May 1921
> <https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2019SW002250>"
> by Jeffrey Love (US Geological Survey) and colleagues.
>
> The summary, above, is largely a result of Hapgood?s work. He
> painstakingly searched historical records including scientific journals,
> newspaper clippings, and other reports to create a moment-by-moment
> timeline of the storm. Such timelines are invaluable to emergency
> planners, who can use them to prepare for future storms.
>
> <https://spaceweather.com/images2020/11may20/aurorasightings_big.png>
> *Above: *Aurora sightings in May 1921. The leftmost red circle marks
> Apia, Samoa.
>
> Jeffrey Love and colleagues also looked into the past and?jackpot!?they
> found some old magnetic chart recordings that did *not go offscale* when
> the May 1921 CMEs hit. Using the data, they calculated "/Dst/"
> (disturbance storm time index), a measure of geomagnetic activity
> favored by many space weather researchers.
>
> "The storm attained an estimated maximum ?/Dst/ on 15 May of 907 ? 132
> nT, an intensity comparable to that of the Carrington Event of 1859,"
> they wrote in their paper.
>
> This dry-sounding result upends conventional wisdom. Students of space
> weather have long been taught that the Carrington Event
> <https://www.swsc-journal.org/articles/swsc/pdf/2013/01/swsc130015.pdf>
> (-/Dst/ = 900 nT) was the strongest solar storm in recorded history. Now
> we know that the May 1921 storm was about equally intense.
>
> If the May 1921 storm hit today, "I?d expect it to lead to most, if not
> all, of the impacts outlined in the 2013 Royal Academy of Engineering
> report
> <
> https://www.raeng.org.uk/publications/reports/space-weather-summary-report
> >
> led by Paul Cannon," says Hapgood. "This could include regional power
> outages, profound changes to satellite orbits, and loss of radio-based
> technologies such as GPS. The disruption of GPS could significantly
> impact logistics and emergency services."
>
> It?s something to think about on the 99th anniversary of a 100-year storm?.
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
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>
>
> End of OKDXA Digest, Vol 188, Issue 5
> *************************************
>