NOAA solar wind prediction tool

NOAA has a nice tool that can be of utility for radio amateur operators that are interested in how the geomagnetic field will be affected and how strongly it will be affected. It is now possible to see when there is a high likelihood that the K and AP indexes will rise.

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By processing the data from the STEREO satellites that are positioned “behind” and to “the side” of the sun, it is possible to plot the solar winds that are emitted from the sun.
You can check it out here: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/wsa-enlil/cme-based/
The sun and the earth as well as the two STEREO satellites are seen from above in the circular images above. The green spot is the earth. The yellow spot is the sun. The grayish spot is the stereo satellite that sees the emissions from the sun before any active areas has rotated towards the earth. The red spot is the stereo satellite that sees the emissions from sun after any active area has rotated thru the earth direction.

The fan shaped images to in the center of the image above is the sun and earth seen “from the side”. It is possible to check if the emissions from the sun will propagate above, below or towards the earth. The AZ images on the left alone are not enough, because a particle emission may have the direction of the earth in zimuth (seen from the sun) but may have too high an elevation or too low an elevation to hit the earth.

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