Contact: Barbara McGehan               FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 
         Stephanie Kenitzer            10/27/98 

The Space Environment Center, the nation's space weather forecasting agency, will soon be issuing forecasts that sound more like weather events on Earth than in outer space. SEC's forecasts will now be issued using outlooks, bulletins, watches, and warnings, just like the National Weather Service uses.

Both the Space Environment Center and the National Weather Service are part of the Commerce Department's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

"We'll be watching the violent solar storms that occur in outer space, so we decided that it made sense to fit our alerts for the public and others affected by space weather into the NWS framework," said Ernie Hildner, SEC's director.

Scientists and space forecasters are expecting an increase in space weather activities as we get farther into Solar Cycle 23 and head for "solar maximum" around the year 2000.

"We'll definitely see more instances of aurora borealis or northern lights, possibly as far south as the Gulf of Mexico," says space forecaster Gary Heckman. "There will also be an increasing number of solar storms, some in the severe category, with resulting geomagnetic storms on Earth. When these 'space storms' hit, there's a chance for satellites to be affected, cell phones and computers to be knocked out, and electrical power blackouts. In 1989, an electrical blackout occurred in Quebec due to a geomagnetic storm."

Another part of SEC's responsibilities is to provide forecasts of conditions in outer space for NASA's space shuttle program. "We have a direct line to NASA's Solar Radiation Analysis Group at the Johnson Space Flight Center in Houston. Whenever there's a shuttle mission, we work very closely with the people at NASA to provide daily and minute- to-minute monitoring of space weather for the shuttle mission," said Heckman.

As part of its new look, SEC will be putting a new suite of space weather advisories on the Weather Wire. Along with the usual weather reports, subscribers can expect to see space weather watches, indicating that severe space weather is expected; space weather warnings, indicating that disturbances are imminent; space weather bulletins, describing interesting conditions; and space weather outlooks, describing general expectations of future conditions. More technical weather products and data are also available on the Weather Wire and at the SEC Web site.

"Compared to Earth weather forecasting, space weather forecasting is still in its infancy. But better technology, the development of space weather models, and satellites such as SOHO, which provide us with images of the sun, are all helping us improve our forecasting techniques," said Hildner.

More information on SEC and space weather can be found on the Web at www.sec.noaa.gov