Quoting in part from the Solar Terrestrial Activity Report: Comment added at 09:03 UTC on February 8: Region 8858 was the likely source of an M1.3 flare at 09:01. An update will be issued later today if there was any significant coronal mass ejection associated with the flare.

Comment added at 13:57 UTC: The long duration M1.3 event peaking at 09:00 UTC had its origin in region 8858. A strong type II sweep was associated with the event. LASCO images of the coronal mass ejection are not yet available, however, region 8858 is rotating into a position from where almost any CMEs will be geoeffective. The CME associated with this flare could be geoeffective, if it is and provided that LASCO images are available, another update will be posted.

Source: http://dxlc.com/solar/ See also: http://www.maj.com/sun/status.html background on CME events and effects: http://solar.physics.montana.edu/press/faq.html

I am no astronomer. But, that geoeffective stuff got my attention!

Comments from those of you who are more knowledgable in this field?

-- Redeye in Ohio (cannot@work.com), February 08, 2000

Answers

Red Eye FWIW Back in Dec. our local electric utility representative here said they were far more concerned about CME's than Y2K. Were headed into some hot fazes. I appreciate the updates.

-- Robert J (crandalls@cableone.net), February 08, 2000.

So did NOAA. They called it the 'real Y2K'....

-- Mello1 (Mello1@ix.netcom.com), February 08, 2000.

Robert, You're welcome, of course.

I've heard figures from 4 days down through 8 hours for how long it can take for a CME to reach earth. Is this a calculation based upon solar wind speeds, or do these things have a life and velocity all their own?

BTW, having fits getting adding links into these posts working -- sorry! (Hints from anyone or the sysops would sure be appreciated!)

-- Redeye in Ohio (cannot@work.com), February 08, 2000.

Material from Saturday's impressive X-class
solar flare and coronal mass ejection was
apparently not directed at Earth and will not
impact our planet's magnetosphere.

FLARE	24 hr	48 hr
CLASS M	50 %	50 %
CLASS X	01 %	01 %

SpaceWeather.com

-- spider (spider0@usa.net), February 08, 2000.

Spider,

Thanks for your update.

What got my attention was that that dxlc.com/solar/ page was referring to an m-class event peaking at 09:00 UTC (2 AM EST in the U.S.?) today and not to the Saturday events.

-- Redeye in Ohio (cannot@work.com), February 08, 2000.

Redeye: Here's an example of how to make a hotlink...

[a href="http://dxlc.com/solar/"]yourlinkname[/a]

Replace the "["s with the less-than symbol (shift-comma). Replace the "]"s with the greater-than symbol (shift-period). Replace "yourlinkname" with some sort of descriptive title.

-- RPGman (tripix@olypen.com), February 08, 2000.

RPGMan,

Thank you for the link help! And I will not ask if the RPG stuff refers to innitials, IBM code, or those things that go 'woosh' and then 'blam'...

-- Redeye in Ohio (cannot@work.com), February 08, 2000.