[HN Gopher] Level S4 solar radiation event
___________________________________________________________________
Level S4 solar radiation event
https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/goes-proton-flux
Author : WorldPeas
Score : 594 points
Date : 2026-01-19 20:26 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.swpc.noaa.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.swpc.noaa.gov)
| uticus wrote:
| Possible aurora visible through central US tonight
| dschuessler wrote:
| This page looks like an accessibility nightmare. The entire
| warning text is an image. There is no transcription present for
| screen reader users. I did not expect this from a government
| website.
| delusional wrote:
| Looking at the aspect ratio (and working in a bank) it's worse
| than that. That's a powerpoint slide.
| delfinom wrote:
| Not like someone with poor vision is going to be able to see
| the aurora borealis that results
|
| /s
| cwillu wrote:
| https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/communities/aurora-dashboard-exper...
| is better
| miduil wrote:
| Nice, you can already see some solar flares in Austria again.
|
| https://www.foto-webcam.eu/webcam/kleinfleisskees/
|
| https://www.foto-webcam.eu/
| qwertox wrote:
| Oh wow! https://www.foto-
| webcam.eu/webcam/ederplan/2026/01/20/0000
|
| And up at the top right, left to "Latest" you can skip the time
| back and forth at 10 minute intervals. And then jump back like
| 10 images, what a beauty.
|
| You can even see Starlink satellites https://www.foto-
| webcam.eu/webcam/ederplan/2026/01/19/1820
| irjustin wrote:
| Possibly the most brilliant are around:
|
| - https://www.foto-webcam.eu/webcam/ederplan/2026/01/19/2230
|
| - https://www.foto-webcam.eu/webcam/ederplan/2026/01/19/2240
|
| Incredible, thanks so much!
| chakintosh wrote:
| Crazy how many starlink satellite trains can be seen here.
| I spotted 4 trains, in that one cam
| irjustin wrote:
| Isn't that just 4 sats and it looks like that because of
| long exposure?
| jcims wrote:
| Not to be a buzzkill but I think those are planes. The stars
| show trails so these must be long exposures, and trails of
| similar length appear to be going in all different
| directions, eg: https://www.foto-
| webcam.eu/webcam/ederplan/2026/01/19/1820
| caseyohara wrote:
| Those images around 19:00 are amazing. Thanks for sharing.
| zahlman wrote:
| It seems that the peak was several hours ago, and I haven't
| observed any effects from it...
| guerrilla wrote:
| The peak was originally supposed to be 6-7 hours from now...
| it's still showing KP 8 here though, so I'm not sure what's
| going on. It could get more intense.
| bartman wrote:
| We had intense aurora in Berlin, Germany. Green clouds dancing in
| the sky levels. Started around 22:10 local time or a bit earlier,
| and at this point there's only a faint red/green glow remaining.
| paulmist wrote:
| Also seen in the Netherlands!
| rob74 wrote:
| Yeah, there were auroras even as far south as Munich. Maybe not
| as intense, but it's the first aurora I ever saw, so I can't
| really judge...
| ccozan wrote:
| I am south-west of Munich and with a perfect clear sky I
| could only see stars, one meteor, and that's it.
| Kyro38 wrote:
| We also had them in Grenoble, south of France.
| fransje26 wrote:
| It was visible in the 22:00-23:00 time window. Here in the
| south west, the sky started turning green around 22:30.
| Tachyooon wrote:
| Could you see it from the inner city or only closer to the
| edges?
| bartman wrote:
| Friends who live in Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain could see it
| pretty well. I'm a bit further south within Berlin where
| skies are minimally darker, but between 10pm and 11pm it was
| so bright that light pollution didn't matter.
|
| Funnily enough, despite having lots of alerts set up it was
| my mom who texted me from northern Brandenburg as she spotted
| it after getting an alert from RegenRadar, of all apps...
| Tachyooon wrote:
| It's amazing to hear it's visible in such a big city. I
| don't have a good intuition for all the metrics that
| describe how strong this storm was/is, but when put like
| this it hits home.
|
| Nice to hear earth weather apps also work great in space
| haha. I'll keep that in mind when I set up my own
| notifications. Hopefully I have time to look into it before
| the next storm hits.
| thrawn0r wrote:
| Saw it in Fhain as well over Ostkreuz station
| fluxflexer wrote:
| Just spend an hour outsite (Northern Germany, 01:00 MET).
| Unfortunately nothing to report, neither visual nor on camera.
| Maybe I just went to late and missed the show. I hope you habe
| more luck in Canada and the US!
| jacquesm wrote:
| It's pretty subtle right now here in NL but I can still see
| it with the naked eye. Mostly greenish haze that fades in and
| out.
| CalRobert wrote:
| ahh I just went outside (south of Utrecht) and saw nothing.
| Maybe too much light pollution.
| jacquesm wrote:
| I'm lucky in that I was close to the IJsselmeer.
| madduci wrote:
| I'm Berlin was around 22-23 o'clock visible
| karim79 wrote:
| I was just out at a dog park and saw nothing! We have clear
| skies. I can't believe I missed this.
| danesparza wrote:
| Next time take a long exposure picture with your phone. You
| might be able to see it that way.
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| I tought I was seeing aurora borealis here at 4 am local time
| in the neighboring Grand Duchy of Luxemburg but it was just
| visual pollution due to lights from a city.
| madduci wrote:
| Can confirm, I've seen pink/green glow over Berlin Sky (and
| pictures as well)
| marc_g wrote:
| Oh really? Oh no I missed it! Is it going to happen again
| today?
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| Do you need long exposure to make it visible with a camera? How
| does that work in the presence of light pollution?
| thebruce87m wrote:
| Tonight I could see the colours without the camera but it
| definitely stands out more with the long exposure of the
| camera.
|
| Even with lights in the direct line of the shot you you can get
| good results - presumably the phone is doing HDR to achieve
| this.
| Macha wrote:
| Local light pollution normally makes it hard to see with
| anything short of long exposure, but today it was naked eye
| visible and regular photos also captured it.
| jjcm wrote:
| If anyone is interested in what "G4" means in context, here's the
| scale: https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/noaa-scales-explanation
| xeckr wrote:
| Looks like we get these for about 60 days for periods lasting
| 11 years.
| irthomasthomas wrote:
| We are at kp 8.67. The Carrington event was a kp 9
| ianruh wrote:
| I am not an expert, but it's worth noting that the kp index
| has a maximum value of 9. So though the Carrington event had
| a kp of 9, its intensity on the related (but not capped)
| HP30/HP60 scale [1] would likely have been higher. [1]
| https://kp.gfz.de/en/hp30-hp60
| repeekad wrote:
| Queue Chernobyl documentary clip measuring the radiation as
| low because that's as high the meter went
| celsoazevedo wrote:
| 3.6 roentgen. Not great, not terrible!
| qingcharles wrote:
| *skin sloughs off*
| anonym29 wrote:
| You didn't see any graphite because it's not there!
| wafflemaker wrote:
| Everything about these miniseries was wonderful.
|
| Casting (who played who), acting, costumes and
| scenography (where did they get all these '80 soviet
| cars), and choice of scenes to film.
|
| I had my hair rising when the guy cleaning roof of a
| building neighboring the reactor got stuck in deadly
| radiation zone for 4x the allowed 13 seconds. "You're
| dead comrade."
| anonymous344 wrote:
| here, take one o
| wyldfire wrote:
| Everybody's a diacritic.
| wyldfire wrote:
| s/queue/cue/
|
| Though I suppose you _could_ also queue it.
| repeekad wrote:
| Meant the first and people should do the second,
| Chernobyl on HBO is great.
|
| It's also technically not a documentary but historical
| drama.
| banku_brougham wrote:
| kp 9 - not great, not terrible
| echelon wrote:
| Have we been having these more recently?
|
| I don't ever recall seeing these in the news so frequently.
| It feels like there are several a year now. A decade ago,
| never.
|
| And I also never remember seeing Aurora at my latitudes.
|
| Do we just have better sensing now, or is there some cycle on
| a period longer than a few years? Or maybe I'm crazy and just
| never noticed.
| awesome_dude wrote:
| We've just passed the 11 year peak - the sun spot activity
| has a period of around 11 years.
| 0manrho wrote:
| Mid to late 2025 was the peak of an 11 year solar cycle
| (25th one since we've started keeping track). We're on the
| trailing end of that peak activity now, which is why the
| past year/several months has seemed so active compared to
| recent years past, and should decrease significantly (in
| frequency and intensity) as 2026 progresses.
|
| There was also a fairly significant geomagnetic storm back
| in November of 2025 as well.
|
| You can see the data here at NOAA's Space Weather site
| https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/solar-cycle-progression
| ErroneousBosh wrote:
| > Have we been having these more recently?
|
| Yes, for suitable values of "recently".
|
| > And I also never remember seeing Aurora at my latitudes.
|
| How old are you?
|
| If you're younger than say your mid-40s you probably won't
| remember the early 80s, which is the last time we had a
| solar maximum that really came to anything.
|
| Solar activity rises and falls on an 11-year cycle, and
| right now we're experiencing quite a peak. The previous
| three, peaking in 2014, 2011, and 1989 were a bit of a
| bust.
|
| There was a massive peak in 1979 and I can remember my dad
| showing me the aurora when I was about six or seven - it
| seemed to be present most nights over the winter. That was
| also around the time of the CB Radio craze, where
| atmospheric conditions were such that you could use "skip"
| - bouncing radio signals off the highly-charged ionosphere
| - to talk to people hundreds of miles away as if they were
| just down the road, even on the comparatively high
| frequencies that CB used. There was a bit of a peak in the
| late 80s, and some good RF propagation too, as well as some
| incredible aurora - although the big one I remember was in
| about the end of 1991, early 1992.
|
| We had absolutely blistering hot summers followed by really
| cold and snowy winters, too, kind of like we're having at
| the moment.
|
| If the solar cycles have a longer repeating cycle of
| intensity on the scale of a hundred years or so (and it
| looks a bit like they do) then the next solar maximum in
| about 2036 is going to be even bigger.
| keepamovin wrote:
| This is also related to weaker solar events leading to
| stronger Earth storms due to Earth's weakening magnetic
| field.
| kelseydh wrote:
| Disturbance storm time index (DST) is a better measure of
| peak intensity as KP is just a weighted average of the
| intensity from the last three hours across monitoring
| stations.
|
| The May 2024 G5 electrical storm had a peak measured DST of
| -412 nT: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_2024_solar_storms
|
| The Carrington Event had an estimated peak DST of -800 nT to
| -1750 nT, but no one really knows:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrington_Event
| neonmagenta wrote:
| so more of a 'bad storm here and there' level?
| 8bitsrule wrote:
| G4: " Induced pipeline currents affect preventive measures, HF
| radio propagation sporadic..."
|
| G5: " Pipeline currents can reach hundreds of amps, HF (high
| frequency) radio propagation may be impossible in many areas
| for one to two days..."
| gexla wrote:
| "Cool! What's G13 do?" - Bill Hicks
|
| Looks like G5 is the highest level and the scale system is
| used by NOAA.
| serf wrote:
| >"Cool! What's G13 do?" - Bill Hicks
|
| I hear that bit in my head every time a new plane or weapon
| designation is announced, glad to hear it stuck with others
| too.
| ck2 wrote:
| G13 could be a gamma-ray burst from a collapsing star less
| than 100 light years from earth
|
| in which case, don't worry about it as we won't be around
| to worry about it further
|
| astro-physics is AMAZING (until it kills you lol)
| gosub100 wrote:
| "Free Energy!"
| autoexec wrote:
| That's the nice thing about solar power, but it's still a
| limited time offer
| smcnally wrote:
| Indirect Nuclear Fusion
| tclancy wrote:
| I wonder if they're still putting out music ...
| mcs5280 wrote:
| Sam Altman has entered an agreement to acquire all future G4
| and G5 energy
| justinator wrote:
| Waiting until it's like a G6, Like a G6
|
| Now I'm feelin' so fly like a G6
| miduil wrote:
| Thanks, really had to listen to the song.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWRJC8ap9B4
| dmurray wrote:
| HF propagation is flaky at the best of times. It's affected
| by the day/night cycle and by the weather.
| non- wrote:
| > Biological: Unavoidable radiation hazard to astronauts on
| EVA; passengers and crew in high-flying aircraft at high
| latitudes may be exposed to radiation risk.
|
| Anyone have a sense of magnitude for this advisory? How much
| more radiation should an airline passenger expect to receive
| during a G4 event than normal?
| inatreecrown2 wrote:
| roughly up to 5-10 times the normal dose.
| NeoInHacker wrote:
| sounds "it's okey" ?
| jojobas wrote:
| Nowhere near lifetime occupational dose limits.
| Helmut10001 wrote:
| Interestingly, there are about 100 events of this severity (G4)
| per cycle, and a single cycle lasts 11 years. This means there
| are about nine G4 events on average per year.
| tomr_stargazer wrote:
| Note, however, that the solar cycle [0] is so named due to
| its minimum and maximum: the most severe events will be
| clustered around the maximum, rather than spread out over the
| whole cycle (as your comment suggested) - so the "nine G4
| events on average per year" is mathematically true but not so
| helpful.
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cycle
| velocity3230 wrote:
| This was an S4 event, however.
| velocity3230 wrote:
| Belay that. The G-value was high too.
| 9dev wrote:
| The scale seems capped at a pretty low upper end? It feels like
| with all the mindbogglingly huge numbers usually involved when
| talking about space, there must be much, much worse events
| possible. Is it just that we don't know enough about them due
| to lack of experience that these aren't included?
| poizan42 wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrington_Event
|
| But having been in 1859 we only have estimates on what the
| consequences would be in the modern world. But pretty grim at
| the looks of it.
| Animats wrote:
| PJM had some geomagnetic disturbance warnings, but did not
| progress to the alert stage or grid re-configuation actions. So,
| no US power grid problems. 104955 Warning
| Geomagnetic Disturbance Warning 01.19.2026 14:30 PJM-RTO
| A Geomagnetic Disturbance Warning has been issued for
| 14:30 on 01.19.2026 through 16:00 on 01.19.2026 . A GMD
| warning of K8 or greater is in effect for this period.
| End time: 01.19.2026 16:00
|
| (All times are prevailing Eastern US time)
|
| I've posted on this before, for other warnings. Not going to
| repeat that.
| cbdevidal wrote:
| Thank you, that's a really handy resource. Shared with my
| prepper friends.
|
| https://emergencyprocedures.pjm.com/ep/pages/dashboard.jsf
| PlatoIsADisease wrote:
| Years ago I was concerned about this and made a plan with my wife
| for what to do if she was at work.
|
| But now we have a bunch of kids in different schools and haven't
| updated our plan.
|
| Does anyone have a plan for what happens if we have a really bad
| event?
| fuzzer371 wrote:
| Keep a couple days water and food on hand, go up to the pub,
| have a pint, and wait for this all to blow over.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| With how much modern cars rely on electronics, I would not
| try to drive during such an event.
| lxgr wrote:
| Solar flares are only dangerous to very long conductors.
| luxuryballs wrote:
| so cancel the limo?
| whyleyc wrote:
| It's ok - The Winchester is within walking distance.
| jrgd wrote:
| Omg i watched this yesterday!
| throwaway81523 wrote:
| That's a safety feature. It prevents you from drinking and
| driving if you go to a pub during a solar flare. :)
| jrgd wrote:
| No one would drive to the pub anyway. Better walking back
| home...
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| Valid. I think I have such an ingrained different set of
| assumptions (a pub being just another kind of place for
| food, and "going to" anything involving a form of
| transportation) that that didn't even occur to me.
| Tepix wrote:
| Buy a bit of extra food and water.
| y1n0 wrote:
| And toilet paper! Rolls and rolls of toilet paper!
| hnuser123456 wrote:
| A really bad event would be that long-distance transmission
| lines act like antennas and pick up millions of volts and blow
| up all the transformers.
|
| I don't know how much you can plan for that other than "if it
| happens, try to get home", and then all the usual prepper
| stuff.
| swader999 wrote:
| First rule of fight club...
| rootusrootus wrote:
| For a really bad event that managed to blow a lot of
| transformers (presumably due to grid operators not seeing it
| coming) ... well, take up farming.
| myself248 wrote:
| Pray for clear skies and go out and watch the beautiful aurora,
| silly!
|
| Depending on the kids' ages, you can teach them quite a lot
| about the Earth's magnetic field and why the aurora
| concentrates at the poles, how the high-energy particles light
| up the sky (it's a lot like a neon light), and how the
| atmosphere shields us from any danger despite the spectacular
| show.
| internet_points wrote:
| Disconnect your telegraph batteries and run on aurora power
| only
| esskay wrote:
| Feel a bit sensationalistic. It happens, it's not rare, and
| we've always got on with life perfectly fine.
| _carbyau_ wrote:
| Weirdly, while the site in question is "blaring klaxons!" there
| are more "cool night lights!" posts than concern.
| guerrilla wrote:
| > while the site in question is "blaring klaxons!"
|
| No, it isn't. It clearly says everything is under control but
| it would be good to keep an eye on it.
| zamadatix wrote:
| Unless you're in space, a large scale electrical operator, or
| relying on HF radio there isn't much reason to be interested
| other than the lights for a G4 (what this is currently classed
| as).
| pvab3 wrote:
| my Telecaster sure was noisy this morning but I didn't think
| much of it
| rzzzt wrote:
| Blaring Klaxons! https://youtu.be/LX2KX0OaofI
| bashtoni wrote:
| Australian Bureau of Meteorology advisory for visible aurora:
| https://www.sws.bom.gov.au/Aurora
| hahahahhaah wrote:
| Is that tonight or last night?
| bashtoni wrote:
| It was only issued this morning Australian time, so I presume
| it's for tonight.
| jp0d wrote:
| Are there any resources to track Aurora sightings or predicted
| sightings?
| stubish wrote:
| At the bottom right of that page is a subscribe link, with a
| number of different alerts and lists to subscribe to.
| jp0d wrote:
| Thank you!
| lakid wrote:
| https://aurora-alerts.uk/ Ignore the UK TLD, this tracks
| global sightings
| jp0d wrote:
| Ahh thank you! I saw a few photos from last night's Aurora
| sightings down here in Vic, Australia. Maybe next time! :)
| aussieguy1234 wrote:
| Worth noting that Kp, which many talk about in discussions
| online, is more or less useless for anyone in Australia or the
| southern hemisphere. Lots of beginner Aurora chasers here get
| tripped up by that.
|
| What is useful is KAus and the G index, KAus is shown on this
| page, so thats what i'll be tracking.
| aussieguy1234 wrote:
| I'll be going out tonight if this continues into Australian night
| time hours.
|
| At this strength, I could see the full display including colors
| with my naked eye in Melbourne, May 11th 2024. This storm is
| slightly stronger than that event.
| ikr678 wrote:
| I'll be attempting to get some photos/footage from Esperance.
| defrost wrote:
| There's a high triple threat bar for Astro photos sourced
| from Western Australia.
|
| https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110529.html
|
| If you manage to pull off the Aurora Australis above a triple
| curl at The Right with a shark body surfing into the green
| room ... the internet will explode.
| rediguanayum wrote:
| Moon should be good too to see Aurora tonight: waxing crescent 1%
| https://www.moongiant.com/phase/today/
| ferguess_k wrote:
| Darn Montreal is still too south. Wish I were in Winnipeg.
| tigerlily wrote:
| Hopefully it's clear space weather for Artemis II coming up. I
| wonder what they do if it's inclement _en route_?
| perihelions wrote:
| There's not that much they can do. It's often discussed that if
| the extreme August 1972 solar storm had overlapped with an
| Apollo mission (it didn't), it would have acutely sickened the
| astronauts.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_1972_solar_storms#Human...
|
| > _" Had a mission been taking place during August, those
| inside the Apollo command module would have been shielded from
| 90% of the incoming radiation. However, this reduced dose could
| still have caused acute radiation sickness if the astronauts
| were located outside the protective magnetic field of Earth,
| which was the case for much of a lunar mission. An astronaut
| engaged in EVA in orbit or on a moonwalk could have experienced
| severe radiation poisoning, or even absorbed a potentially
| lethal dose."_
|
| The Orion capsule's contingency plan looks something like this:
|
| > _" To protect themselves, astronauts will position themselves
| in the central part of the crew module largely reserved for
| storing items they'll need during flight and create a shelter
| using the stowage bags on board. The method protects the crew
| by increasing mass directly surrounding them, and therefore
| making a denser environment that solar particles would have to
| travel through, while not adding mass to the crew module
| itself."_
|
| https://www.nasa.gov/missions/artemis/orion/scientists-and-e...
| xattt wrote:
| For All Mankind "illustrated" a solar storm at surface-level
| of the moon, including "boiling" regolith. I wonder how
| embellished this was, or whether particle bombardment would
| actually cause this.
|
| My mind goes to the working mechanism of eidophor projectors,
| where oil on the projection bowl does indeed deform under
| electron beam exposure.
| frzen wrote:
| I had the most intensely coloured lights visible in the west of
| Ireland. I've seen them a few times before but never like this.
| Phones were capturing them in video not just long exposures.
|
| Not sure what the best service is to be alerted ahead of time.
| Apparently it'll be strong here again at 6am according to some of
| the apps some random people were waving around.
| ortusdux wrote:
| There are several apps that do a good job of alerting users. I
| use "Aurora Pro", which I prefer because it checks cloud cover
| and lets you set alert thresholds based on viewing probability.
| King-Aaron wrote:
| I woke up to a notification from aurora pro today, I'd
| forgotten I had the app. This would explain it
| cbeach wrote:
| Probably a stupid question, but should I unplug my EV? (UK)
| qayxc wrote:
| No need. Wrong type of solar event. You might be able to see
| auroras, though. I saw some a couple of hours ago.
| jacquesm wrote:
| No.
| _blk wrote:
| Yes! Absolutely, but only if you want to drive it.
| aliljet wrote:
| I wonder if we're going to see an aurora over Seattle tonight?
| throwway120385 wrote:
| Too much light pollution. You'd have to get well outside of the
| city. I looked at the weather last night and I think there
| might have been some trails on Tiger where you would've seen it
| with headlamp off.
|
| In Seattle you can barely see planets.
| tramtrist wrote:
| We never get aurora in Japan :(
| pilaf wrote:
| Hokkaido got some back in November:
| https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/16155623
| tramtrist wrote:
| Yeah I figure Hokkaido may get a taste but we here in Honshu
| never do :'(
| WhitneyLand wrote:
| How rare is this?
|
| G4 storms are ~100 per solar cycle (~11 years).
|
| So roughly 9 G4 events/year on average.
| burnt-resistor wrote:
| Like 20-25 years rare according to some space weather youtuber.
| creatonez wrote:
| > some space weather youtuber
|
| Please stop watching that guy, he is a total fraud and knows
| nothing about physics.
| tbrownaw wrote:
| But they should mostly be in the same part of the cycle rather
| than spread evenly.
|
| It probably wouldn't make sense to calculate "average snow days
| per month" across an entire calendar year (in most places...),
| this is the same thing.
| velocity3230 wrote:
| This is an S4, though.
| velocity3230 wrote:
| Belay that. The G-value was high too.
| rapht wrote:
| This is an S4. Last S4 event was in October 2003.
| drmpeg wrote:
| Although everyone is interested in visible aurora, the proton
| flux is also really impressive. It peaked at 37,000 pfu at 1910Z.
| The highest ever recorded was 43,500 pfu in March 1991.
| JoeDaDude wrote:
| There is a video update from the NOAA Space Weather Prediction
| Center. (I could only find this on Facebook)
| https://www.facebook.com/reel/1190509063198524
| burnt-resistor wrote:
| Up to G-5 possibly. Cell phone visible in dark areas throughout
| most of CONUS.
|
| It was mentioned that air travel ionizing radiation exposure
| increases during geomagnetic storms. I'd consider pausing travel
| for a couple of days to not be a guinea pig because there's not
| enough data to consider it safe. If anyone absolutely must fly
| tonight, it'd be interesting if they were to take a high
| sensitivity dosimeter to see what happens.
| garbagewoman wrote:
| Not sure how to deal with this kind of wildly unbalanced risk
| assessment
| Kunsang wrote:
| Discussion of the event
| https://community.spaceweatherlive.com/topic/4210-x19-cme/
| neogodless wrote:
| This is definitely not a language I speak!
|
| Flux and bZ!
| imp0cat wrote:
| Surely you must be familiar with the flux capacitor? ;)
| Kunsang wrote:
| I understand maybe half of this, but I followed the
| discussion and knew when it was about time to go outside.
| fnands wrote:
| Damn, I love finding some hyper-specific forums like this one.
|
| Sooo much jargon.
| nbf_1995 wrote:
| Title says "S4" solar radiation event, but the linked page says
| "G4" geomagnetic storm
| anon115 wrote:
| any effects on the human body??
| internet_points wrote:
| Depends. If you're outside at night and tilt your head up, the
| Default Mode Network of your brain may be temporarily
| suppressed, while dopamine may increase.
| andrewinardeer wrote:
| Any tips on best practices in how one can protect homelab rigs
| from a Carrington level event? Let's say we were given two days
| notice that the mother of all S4s was inbound. Just switch
| everything off?
|
| What if one of my homelabs needed 100% uptime to meet my wife's
| SLA for messaging? Is this able to be protected?
| rootusrootus wrote:
| AFAIK the risk is for long transmission lines. So your
| equipment at home is not really in any danger, as long as there
| is not a major surge on the transmission lines that makes it
| all the way to your house. If that happens, well, losing the
| home lab is probably no longer the issue.
| idatum wrote:
| Discontinue use of your telegraph system.
|
| Perhaps though you will still be able to continue to send and
| receive messages despite having disconnected your power supply.
| [1]
|
| [1]
| https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uva.x001679510&seq=40...
| amluto wrote:
| Not much? As I understand it, the major effects are in very
| long wires. Long wires can have get massive induced currents.
| But your homelab is unlikely to have long wires or very large
| loops. Ethernet wires are limited to 100m, and unshielded
| Ethernet is transformer-isolated to well over 1kV.
|
| Shielded Ethernet could plausibly have issues with induced
| current on the shield. PoE might be less immune than ordinary
| Ethernet depending on what you're doing with it, although well-
| behaved devices should be isolated. If you have a cable ISP,
| the cable shield might get toasty, although it's likely to be
| grounded close enough to your house that any damage will be
| upstream.
|
| Your 100% uptime will be tricky if your ISP goes down or you
| lose power.
| tbrownaw wrote:
| Make sure you have a surge protector or ups, in case it makes
| the power grid go funky. Which you should have anyway.
|
| Also, it could be a convenient excuse to upgrade to fiber
| internet service if you haven't already. (Yes, excuse.
| Equipment _should_ have more than good enough isolation to not
| care.)
| johncolanduoni wrote:
| Even if you don't have fiber all the way into your house,
| most cable internet terminates pretty close to the home these
| days. It kind of has to, since bandwidth has gone way up and
| as a result they can't put very many subscribers on the same
| termination system.
|
| We didn't really understand this kind of thing when the
| Carrington event happened, so nobody knows for sure, but
| estimates for induced voltage on long conductors are usually
| something on the order of 20V/km. So for a 5 km long coaxial
| cable, you're only talking about ~120V of induced potential
| difference (i.e. the same voltage as a residential plug in
| the US). When people are analyzing the potential damage from
| this kind of electromagnetic disturbance (E3 is the term
| you'll see, based on analysis of nuclear EMP which has other
| components that you don't see in geomagnetic storms
| regardless of severity), it's mostly about _really_ long
| conductors, like on the order of 100km.
| lgats wrote:
| https://www.ieso.ca/Sector-Participants/RSS-Feeds/Day-0-Advi...
|
| https://www.misoenergy.org/markets-and-operations/notificati...
|
| https://www.ercot.com/services/comm/mkt_notices/notices
|
| https://emergencyprocedures.pjm.com/ep/pages/dashboard.jsf
| _blk wrote:
| Nice. And it's somewhat relieving to read this over a Starlink
| connection.
| AnishLaddha wrote:
| fascinating, hope our critical infrastructure can handle this.
| how long does something like this last, and will it have an
| effect on artemis 2?
|
| hypothetical: if a carrington event-esque storm happens during
| the mission, how badly will the houston <-> orion module
| communication links be affected?
| sparin9 wrote:
| TL;DR: A severe (G4-level) geomagnetic storm hit Earth on January
| 19, 2026 due to a solar coronal mass ejection. It can disrupt
| power grids, GPS, satellite systems, and radio communications,
| while creating visible aurora displays at higher latitudes.
| lukan wrote:
| I missed it (seeing the Aurora) .. are there any reliable alerts
| for this sort of event, that do not alert me about anything else,
| but really only such big events?
| cvt7bm wrote:
| https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/content/subscription-services
| lukan wrote:
| Thanks, that seems exactly what I was looking for. (Now I
| have to figure out the best way to get a alert to my phone if
| my inbox receives such a mail, probably easiest to use a a
| mailadress just for this case and then treat this emailadress
| different)
| MrGilbert wrote:
| One caveat is, that these events cannot be forecasted in the
| same way as weather on earth can. You usually only have a lead
| time of 15 - 45 minutes. See also
| https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/content/aurora-tutorial
| lukan wrote:
| Sure. But if I am awake, those 15 minutes are enough to get
| dressed and go outside.
|
| Yesterday I just would have had to walk to the balkony to see
| it, but I was busy with some frustrating coding problem
| instead ..
| Levitating wrote:
| same, I was awake for the whole night but completely missed
| it
| vachina wrote:
| On iOS there's an app literally called "Aurora".
|
| It will notify you when you're in an area with a high Kp (or
| above a Kp you specify).
| albertzeyer wrote:
| I had registered for alerts on https://aurorasaurus.org/. But
| that alert was sent way too late for me (strongest lights were
| yesterday around 10-11 PM, and the notification was sent 2 AM
| today). But I was very lucky and just noticed the lights by
| accident on my way home.
| cess11 wrote:
| I live somewhat close to the arctic circle and the aurora has
| been exceptional lately. One recent evening it looked like there
| was a massive city behind the cloud cover, and a few nights
| before when the sky was clear I watched enormous green flames for
| hours.
| internet_points wrote:
| Aha, you probably witnessed a glimpse of Cittagazze. You can
| capture it in photograms with a special emulsion:
| https://hisdarkmaterials.fandom.com/wiki/Aurora?file=Citt%C3...
| brador wrote:
| What strength would destroy the sensor?
| jokull wrote:
| As seen from my apartment in Reykjavik Iceland:
| https://ss.solberg.is/89N0qS7T
| smcnally wrote:
| That's beautiful. But you get aurora even sans G4, true? Was
| this more intense and spectacular?
| jokull wrote:
| Yes - not seen it this red though.
| jesprenj wrote:
| Our network router in our radio station started acting crazy at
| 22:00:40 Europe/Ljubljana time. Uptime monitoring via HTTPS
| reported downtime for 5 minutes, but our radio archive that
| records audio over LiveWire recorded some bitcrushing effects for
| 5 minues. Maybe our Mikrotik hEX was flipping some bits?
| Recording from the radio archive:
| https://splet.4a.si./dir/solar.mp3
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| Yes, sounds similar to a corrupted digital audio.
|
| Replace hex with something more robust, at least with an actual
| metallic case.
| jesprenj wrote:
| Yes, that is planned. As soon as we get more money (:
| noumenon1111 wrote:
| *Gemini Tech Tip #624:* Boost your Wi-Fi _and_ spiritual
| resilience by wrapping your router in aluminum foil! Protect
| against solar flares, reptilian packet theft, and basic
| physics. Turn it into a family craft: make and decorate foil
| router cozies and matching foil hats, then browse Reddit and
| /or the park, seeking fellow shiny-headed believers.
| motrm wrote:
| Sounds like a dialup modem at about 3:30 :)
|
| How sure are we the aliens aren't trying to dial in?
| markonen wrote:
| Just had my first uncorrectable memory read error on our servers
| in 10 years or so today (in Sacramento). I'd like to think it's
| related because the alternative (buying new DIMMs) is too
| horrifying to contemplate
| buildbot wrote:
| Last major storm I saw a significant number of single bit
| errors on my main server - never happened again, still using
| the same ram. So +1 anecdote
| dosnem wrote:
| Is this detectable without some parity checks?
| danielheath wrote:
| No, but ECC ram gives you _hardware_ parity checks, which
| is much faster and doesn't require you to change your code.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| Well I didn't see anything last night (In Eastern Canada),
| probably because there was too much light in the suburb. Now the
| aurora "area" turns back to Europe and Asia, I hope you guys
| enjoy it!
|
| Judging by this picture:
| https://services.swpc.noaa.gov/images/animations/ovation/nor... ,
| I think in a few hours the whole North Europe can see it very
| clearly.
| T0Bi wrote:
| Your URL is broken (for me)
| juliend2 wrote:
| Might be a coincidence but for the first time last night, my
| son's sleep projector[0] didn't stop after 1h like it does
| normally.
|
| I guess this could be related to it? (we are in Montreal)
|
| I doubt these toys are protected from those kinds of events.
|
| [0] https://www.amazon.com/Fisher-Price-Settle-Sleep-
| Projection-...
| mrbluecoat wrote:
| Verizon will probably retroactively blame their outage on it.
| notfish wrote:
| Had to stay up until 2am shutting down our spacecraft. Stupid sun
| hates to see me get a solid night's sleep.
| aclindsa wrote:
| What spacecraft is your spacecraft?
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| And where did you park it? And what's the combination to open
| the hatch?
| wafflemaker wrote:
| What are the best apps to get notified when there's a geomagnetic
| storm /chances to see Aurora? Preferably not only for USA.
| trashface wrote:
| Scott Manley just did a video on radiation shielding:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJcbevbBzsc
|
| Based on that, I presume the astronauts on the ISS will need to
| take cover due to this event
| johng wrote:
| These solar events can cause loss of communication with
| satellites making avoidance maneuvers hard or impossible. This
| article just came out recently and is definitely scary:
| https://www.universetoday.com/articles/28-days-to-disaster-w...
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Any aurora luck for those of us in the Rockies? (Near
| Yellowstone.)
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(page generated 2026-01-20 23:00 UTC)