A barrage of charged particles triggered by this morning's solar flare is expected to hit Earth tomorrow [24 Jan] at around 9 a.m. EST (1400 GMT), according to experts at the Space Weather Prediction Center, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
According to NOAA, this is the strongest solar radiation storm since May 2005, and as a precaution, polar flights on Earth are expected to be re-routed within the next few hours, Kathy Sullivan, deputy administrator of NOAA, said today.
http://www.space.com/14319-huge-solar-eruption-sparks-radiation-storm.html
Forget about any chance of seeing an aurora 'cos it'll be rainy here :-(
Hope it keeps if up for another 3 weeks.
Carole
The CME hit the Earth's magnetic field at 1500 UTC.
At the time of writing there are some nice graphs here:
http://www.spaceweather.com/
Auroras expected in the next few hours.
But cloud everywhere :evil:
Shame it didn't happen yesterday :-?