[Scan-DC] Sun Unleashes Biggest Solar Flare of the Year Yet - Yahoo! Weather

[Clegg, Andrew W.]

This is a bit more HF-related rather than scanning-related.

"The solar flare triggered a short-lived radio communications blackout on Earth that registered as an R2 event (on a scale of R1 to R5), according to space weather scales maintained NOAA"

I didn't realize NOAA had a radio blackout scale. According to the NOAA Web site, an R2 radio blackout corresponds to the following:

"HF Radio: Limited blackout of HF radio communication on sunlit side, loss of radio contact for tens of minutes. Navigation: Degradation of low-frequency navigation signals for tens of minutes."

More info on the flare at:
http://weather.yahoo.com/sun-unleashes-biggest-solar-flare-yet-163808669.html 

More info on the radio blackout scale at (bottom of page):
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/NOAAscales/

Andy