https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/goes-proton-flux
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
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.
Nice, you can already see some solar flares in Austria again.
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.
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
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?
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
I've posted on this before, for other warnings. Not going to repeat that.
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.
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.
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?
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.
Moon should be good too to see Aurora tonight: waxing crescent 1% https://www.moongiant.com/phase/today/
Australian Bureau of Meteorology advisory for visible aurora: https://www.sws.bom.gov.au/Aurora
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?
Discussion of the event https://community.spaceweatherlive.com/topic/4210-x19-cme/
How rare is this?
G4 storms are ~100 per solar cycle (~11 years).
So roughly 9 G4 events/year on average.
As seen from my apartment in ReykjavÃk Iceland: https://ss.solberg.is/89N0qS7T
Had to stay up until 2am shutting down our spacecraft. Stupid sun hates to see me get a solid night’s sleep.
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.
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-...
Do you need long exposure to make it visible with a camera? How does that work in the presence of light pollution?
https://www.ieso.ca/Sector-Participants/RSS-Feeds/Day-0-Advi...
https://www.misoenergy.org/markets-and-operations/notificati...
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
Title says "S4" solar radiation event, but the linked page says "G4" geomagnetic storm
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.
Verizon will probably retroactively blame their outage on it.
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...
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.
What are the best apps to get notified when there's a geomagnetic storm /chances to see Aurora? Preferably not only for USA.
Weirdly, while the site in question is "blaring klaxons!" there are more "cool night lights!" posts than concern.
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?
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
I wonder if we're going to see an aurora over Seattle tonight?
Probably a stupid question, but should I unplug my EV? (UK)
Possible aurora visible through central US tonight
Hopefully it's clear space weather for Artemis II coming up. I wonder what they do if it's inclement en route?
It seems that the peak was several hours ago, and I haven't observed any effects from it...
Nice. And it's somewhat relieving to read this over a Starlink connection.
Any aurora luck for those of us in the Rockies? (Near Yellowstone.)
Darn Montreal is still too south. Wish I were in Winnipeg.
What strength would destroy the sensor?
any effects on the human body??
We never get aurora in Japan :(
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.
If anyone is interested in what "G4" means in context, here's the scale: https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/noaa-scales-explanation