Hey Arnold, just when we thought we had seen the worst of it all, even Old Sol decides he doesn't like us. Today has been the most difficult day for radio communications (especially in the HF bands) that I have seen in many, many years. We have for the most part simply been blacked-out. We're just starting to hear signals from the Northeast US, but they have those wavy sounds on them. Remember how they would be when you had a large aurora borialis out in the North Atlantic ... LOL.
I suppose we will start to catch up tonight with all the traffic that is piling up. I think I may have reached a small peak in frustration a little while ago ... oh, well, I didn't like those headphones anyway and new ones don't cost that much ... and the wall actually looks pretty neat with those little dents in it ... roflmao@me.
I guess that if you read the following, you can get very angry at Bush, the Governor of Rhode Island and of course the Head Chef at Brennens ... now we know how bad FEMA really is ... look at what they did to the sunspot cycle ...
Powerful Solar Flare Disrupts HF Communication
NEWINGTON, CT, Sep 7, 2005--One of the largest solar flares on record occurred today as a very active solar region 808 produced a powerful X17.1 flare--a "severe" or R4 event on NOAA's R1 to R5 scale. NOAA's GOES-12 satellite observed the flare at 1740 UTC. R4 events typically occur about eight times during each 11-year solar cycle, and today's was the fourth largest in 15 years.
"This event created a complete blackout of high-frequency (HF) communications on the daylit side of Earth," NOAA's Space Environment Center (SEC) reported. "Communications used by emergency services along the Gulf Coast may have experienced problems due to this flare. Low frequency navigation systems may also have experienced a period of significant degradation." R4 events also can disrupt satellites.
The effects of the X17.1-class solar flare began at 1717 UTC, peaked at 1740 UTC and ended at 1803 UTC. X-ray flux exceeded M5 at 1726 UTC.
A very bright and fast coronal mass ejection was observed, but the material was not Earth directed. An S1 to S2 is expected following this eruption, but it won't begin until late today or early September 8.
Over the past two weeks, the same active region of the sun has produced a series of significant solar eruptions as it made its passage around the back side of the sun. "Significant eruptions are expected in the coming days," the SEC said. "Agencies impacted by space weather storms may experience disruptions over the next two weeks. These include spacecraft operations, electric power systems, HF communications, and low-frequency navigation systems."
AI
