SUN HURLS ANOTHER MAJOR SOLAR STORM TOWARDS EARTH

Oct. 30, 2003 — Stormy weather continues to dominate the sun with a major solar flare erupting on Wednesday at 3:49 p.m. EST. The associated coronal mass ejection or CME—a huge cloud of electrically charged particles—raced towards Earth at nearly 5 million mph, arriving Thursday in just 20 hours. The resulting severe geomagnetic storm, a G-4 on the NOAA space weather scales that run 1 to 5, hit the Earth’s geomagnetic field on Thursday at 11:20 a.m. EST, reports the NOAA Space Environment Center. (Click NOAA satellite image for larger view of sun taken on Oct. 30, 2003, at 3:35 EST. Click here to view latest solar images. Please credit “NOAA.”)

NOAA space weather forecasters expect the storming to continue through midday Friday, with the potential of reaching extreme, G-5, levels periodically over the next 24 hours.

NOAA space weather forecaster Bill Murtagh said, “We don’t expect this storm to be as
intense as the storm we experienced Wednesday, but it is still a complex and significant event.” The region producing these storms, NOAA Active Region 486, is still well positioned on the sun and could continue to produce major storms for the next four or five days.

“This is big activity no matter when it occurs, but it’s especially significant during this part of the solar cycle,” said NOAA space weather forecaster Joe Kunches. The current storming on the sun comes at a time known as solar minimum, when things are relatively quiet on the sun when compared to solar maximum. The solar cycle runs approximately 11 years.

NOAA is dedicated to enhancing economic security and national safety through the prediction and research of weather and climate-related events and providing environmental stewardship of the nation’s coastal and marine resources. NOAA is part of the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Relevant Web Sites
NOAA Space Environment Center

NOAA Space Weather Scales

NOAA Solar X-ray Imager — Latest Views of the Sun

Latest SOHO images

Media Contact:
Barbara McGehan, NOAA Space Environment Center, (303) 497-6288