The sun is a fusion bomb we orbit on purpose. When it sneezes, the grid catches the cold — and the horde doesn't need electricity.
Solar wind measured at DSCOVR, a million miles upwind of us — what it reads now reaches Earth in roughly 30–60 minutes. Bz -3 nT: Slightly southward. Aurora needs a southward Bz; a fast wind with Bz pinned negative is the combination worth staying up for. NOAA puts the next 24 hours at 65% for a C-flare, 20% for an M, 1% for an X.
The sun naps. The horde does not.
GPS: No storm in progress that would move a GPS fix. Expect the usual few metres of error from buildings, trees and the receiver itself, which is almost always the real limit.
Shortwave: Shortwave is behaving. No flare large enough to ionise the dayside and swallow it.
| Date | Flare blackout odds | Radiation storm | Geomagnetic |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thu 24 Sep | 20% minor, 1% major | 1% | G1 (minor) |
| Fri 25 Sep | 20% minor, 1% major | 1% | G0 (none) |
| Sat 26 Sep | 20% minor, 1% major | 1% | G0 (none) |
Read from NOAA’s R, S and G scales for latitude 40.0°. These are the documented effects of the storm level currently in force, not a measurement of the error on your own receiver — nobody publishes that for an arbitrary address. Three different mechanisms are at work: flares black out shortwave on the daylit side within minutes, proton storms hit navigation over the poles, and geomagnetic storms are the ones that actually move a GPS fix. Ordinary positioning error from buildings and tree cover is larger than anything below a G3.
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GOES long-band X-ray flux, log scale. Horizontal bands mark flare classes: crossing into M or X is when things get interesting. Latest flare: C1.1
Planetary Kp index in 3-hour blocks. 5+ is a geomagnetic storm; the hatched bars are NOAA's forecast.
Close approaches over the next 60 days inside 10 lunar distances (LD) — 1 LD is the Moon's distance, about 239,000 miles. Sizes are estimated from brightness and are rough to a factor of two. None of these are on an impact course; NASA tracks them precisely, which is exactly why they are boring and you should sleep well.
Bright meteors detected entering the atmosphere by US government sensors, with the energy released in kilotons of TNT. Most burn up tens of miles overhead. Plotted on the Global Hazard Watch map too.
Data: NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center (swpc.noaa.gov) and NASA/JPL Center for Near-Earth Object Studies, updated continuously. Flare classes: A < B < C < M < X, each 10× stronger than the last. Prepare for grid-down days at the Survival Kit.
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