Space weather

NOAA publishes the state of near-Earth space continuously and in the open. This is that data. → Open the board

The storm scales and three-day forecast up top, then the planetary K-index with NOAA’s forecast extending forward, GOES X-ray flux with a seven-day flare log, solar wind speed and Bz from DSCOVR at L1, and thirty days of F10.7.

When the sun has a flare, it sends out two different things. The first is X-rays, and they travel at the speed of light and hit Earth in about eight minutes. Those X-rays mess up the upper atmosphere on the daytime side of the planet, and within minutes the shortwave radio bands (HF) stop working there. The second thing is a cloud of charged particles (the “solar wind”), which is much slower and takes a day or more to reach us. When it arrives, it scrambles radio signals that travel over the polar regions, and that disruption last about a day.

A radio operator watches these two numbers because they warn about two separate problems that arrive at different times.

Built while playing with Baofeng and getting an amateur license.