Extreme G5 Geomagnetic Storm

[Kyle Stephanos <MajorRadioFreak@excite.com>]

Hello. I have been following the progress of the Earth directed
coronal mass ejection shockwave from the X5 solar flare that occurred
on July 14th. This is the largest solar flare to affect Earth
in years. According to http://www.spaceweather.com/ the impact
was predicted for 1500 EDT this Saturday afternoon. Sure enough,
the site was updated with the news that the powerful shock wave
has struck Earth at 1500 EDT. I happened to mosy out for some
coffee at the local coffee shop at around 4pm today, and noticed
that 107.3 WAAF from Paxton, MA, not coming in at all! I backed
up the truck and they were there, but below a strange sounding
"hash." So I scanned the band and conditions seem to be very
strange now. I am in the Haverhill MA area and usually the Boston
FM's come in with just a little "picket fencing." Today however, the
Prudential FM's were all moderate to heavy "picket fencing" The 2 big
Manchester NH FM's were much noisier, and WHOM atop Mt. Washington was
very noisy. That's unusual since they usually bomb in here. Even the
100.3 in Portsmouth had totally dead spots. 
According to my latest Space Science News email, conditions are extreme
and the aurora could be visible at middle (and possibly
even equatorial) latitudes tonight!!! Too bad about our current
cloud cover.  (See http://sec.noaa.gov/pmap/index.html for the latest
aurora info)
I noticed the daytime AM reception seemed to be unaffected. Interesting.
Has anyone else on the list noticed strange conditions?

Best Regards!

Kyle (MajorRadioFreak@excite.com)















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