Severe Solar Flare Erupts...potential for Auroras far south?

[Stormsfury]

http://www.spaceweather.com/

EXTREME SOLAR ACTIVITY: One of the most powerful solar flares in years erupted from giant sunspot 486 this morning at approximately 1110 UT. The blast measured X17 on the Richter scale of solar flares. As a result of the explosion, a strong S3-class solar radiation storm is underway. Click here to learn how such storms can affect our planet. The explosion also hurled a coronal mass ejection (CME) toward Earth. When it left the sun, the cloud was traveling 2125 km/s (almost 5 million mph). This CME could trigger bright auroras when it sweeps past our planet perhaps as early as tonight.

This is a LONG LOOP (about 7.1 MB) of the sun (LASCO3) from the SOHO website (the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory).
http://150.144.30.101/data/LATEST/current_c3small.gif

[PTrackerLA]

If auroras are viewable tomorrow night this far south, would you have to be in a completely dark area (like in the country) to view them? I would love to see auroras

[Stormsfury]

Not sure, PtrackerLA ... but one requirement is that is isn't CLOUDY! LOL ... even worse, thunderstorms and very heavy rainfall (possibly the largest 24 hour rainfall total this year! and most falling in a 3-4 hour period tonight!)

SF

[weatherlover427]

You guys are about at my latitude (~34°North) ... we may be able to see them if it isn't foggy ... I shall be on the lookout!

[Corona]

The last really large solar event was back in 1989 and we saw the
aurora from north to south across the whole sky. It was a sheet of
red then green and didn't move around that much, but once you see it,
you'll never forget! Totally awsome.

[TexasStooge]

Thanks for the report.

In fact, here's the pic courtesy of Yahoo! News:



This is a undated photo made available in London, Tuesday Oct. 28, 2003, of one of the biggest solar flares which erupted from the Sun, threatening to disrupt power and communications on Earth. After a week of intense activity on the Sun a massive flare bust from the star, according to space weather scientists in America and Europe. Superheated gas and energy, called a coronal mass ejection, exploded from the Sun's surface travelling at five million miles per hour.(AP Photo/Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, pa)

[PTrackerLA]

Well it won't be cloudy here tonight so I'll definately be looking out for the "southern lights".

[john186292]

GRID safe at night? pls see my just now post , in us weather part of storm2k.
also some related questions in that post.
thanks,
john in new 0rleans