On Thu, 30 Oct 2003 10:22:28 -0600, "Montblack"
wrote in Message-Id:
:

("Jay Honeck" wrote)
snip
We do this every time they say there will be a comet, meteor shower, or
sun
flare. Never -- not even ONCE -- have we seen anything. :-(


Pssst...Buddy. Wanna buy some 30th anniversary Comet Kahotek pictures?

Montblack
"I like to watch"



Here's a little information pertinent to the subject of this thread:


Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 17:44:58 -0400
From: Richard Langley
Subject: Major Geomagnetic Storm Underway

As reported by the Canadian Space Weather Forecast Centre in Ottawa:

Major Storm Warning
A major solar flare and eruption on the Sun occurred on 28 October at
11:02 UT (06:02 EST). This sent a cloud of charged particles towards
the Earth at a speed of over 2000 km/sec. The size of the solar flare
and the speed of the eruption prompted the Canadian Space Weather
Forecast Centre to issue a ÒMajor Storm WatchÓ for 29 October from
06:00 to 14:00 UT (01:00 to 09:00 EST).

Major Storm Observed
The solar disturbance reached the Earth at approx 06:00 UT (01:00
EST), 29 October and has produced a Major Magnetic Storm in all
regions of Canada. Magnetic field variations are up to 1000 nT at
lower latitudes and over 3000 nT in the auroral zone, reaching a
maximum of 4000 nT at Iqualuit. This is over 10 times larger than a
moderate magnetic storm, and over 100 times larger than normal
conditions. The size of the magnetic disturbance means that
compasses can be unreliable, HF radio propagation will be affected,
and large geomagnetically induced currents can be expected.

[Note that the GPS broadcast single-frequency ionospheric delay model
will likely be performing poorly and WADGPS systems such as WAAS and
CDGPS will likely be unable to account for storm effects on their
ionospheric delay corrections. -- R.B.L.]