Solar Activity Report for 9/20/05
- All is quiet this evening. Sunspot region 808 is no more. Region 810
is rotating into view, although it doesn't appear to have the
potential for generating a significant flare at this time. Given that
there isn't much activity to report, here's an interesting bit of
trivia? What two years had 17 X-class flares and 3 severe geomagnetic
storms? 2000 and 2005. The difference? 2000 was close to the solar
maxinum. 2005 is supposed to be close to the minimum! Curious, no?
Having big flares at the minimum is not without precedent, however.
In fact, there was a big flare at the very bottom of Cycle 21 and 22.
Now, the Cycle 23 minimum isn't supposed to come until next year.
The 11 figure is not set in stone, though. Sunspot cycles have been
observed to be as short as 7 and as long as 14 years. The next few
months will tell how this one goes. There is some speculation that
the Cycle 23 minimum might come earlier than expected. Again, the
next few months will tell.
The current solar and geomagnetic conditions are :
NOAA sunspot number : 43
SFI : 88
A index : 7
K index : 1
Solar wind speed : 385.5 km/sec
Solar wind density : 1.8 protons/cc
Solar wind pressure : 0.5 nPa
IMF : 5.7 nT
IMF Orientation : 1.8 nT North
Conditions for the last 24 hours :
No space weather storms were observed for the past 24 hours.
Forecast for the next 24 hours :
No space weather storms are expected for the next 24 hours.
Solar activity forecast :
Solar activity is expected to be very low to low.
Geomagnetic activity forecast :
The geomagnetic field is expected to be quiet to unsettled.
Recent significant solar flare activity :
- Theoretically could ionospheric heaters have any significant effect
on the weather?
"A high power transmitter and antenna array operating in the High
Frequency (HF) range. When complete, the transmitter will be capable
of producing up to 3.6 million Watts to an antenna system consisting
of 180 crossed dipole antennas arranged as a rectangular, planar
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