Top News of the Day
Boulder Magnetometer Data Lists were Discontinued April 15, 2009
On April 15 the USGS, an acknowledged center of expertise for
geomagnetism, assumed full responsibility for the Boulder
magnetometer and its data. SWPC will continue to be a user of that data, but will no longer be the point of distribution of raw magnetometer data. Therefore, the Boulder magnetometer DATA LISTS will no longer be available via SWPC. However, the SWPC Boulder magnetometer web page will continue unchanged.
Carol Finn, USGS Geomagnetism Group Leader, (cafinn @ usgs.gov) is the
point of contact for interested parties. Please direct any comments or
questions to her.
NOAA To Hold 6th GOES Users' Conference Nov. 3-5, 2009
February 27, 2009 -- The 6th GOES Users’ Conference, “Bringing Environmental Benefits to a Society of Users,” organized by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) with support from the Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies/Space Science and Engineering Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, will be held Nov. 3-5, 2009, at the Monona Terrace Convention Center in Madison, Wisconsin. An Interest Form is now available online.
For more information, please see: http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/goes_r/meetings/guc2009.
3- 7-, and 30-day STEREO IMPACT Energetic Particle Plots Online
December 16 , 2008 -- SWPC is now making 3 day, 7 day, and 30 day plots of STEREO IMPACT energetic particle data available. A new feature on the 30 day plots is the dashed vertical line indicating data from 27 days prior to the plot generation time. This is convenient for comparing corotating structures from one rotation to the next. Similar plots for the magnetic field data are expected soon.
GOES 11 Becomes Primary Electron Satellite, GOES 10 Secondary Satellite
December 1, 2008 --The GOES 12 Electron sensor has begun experiencing periods of noisy data. GOES 11 has been designated the SWPC GOES Electron Satellite and GOES 10 the Secondary.
The electron detector provides three energetic particle channels: >0.6 MeV electrons, >2 MeV electrons, and 15-40 MeV protons. These data are the basis for alerts and warnings that help to mitigate satellite failures due to spacecraft charging and to mitigate the radiation hazard encountered by astronauts during space walks.
October 14, 2008 -- The Space Operations Communicator, a multidisciplinary journal for space flight operations, is seeking survey paper submissions on the topic of the space environment and its impact on human and robotic space flight operations. The intent of the paper is to give those in operations a solid background on Space Weather phenomena that affect their operations and to brief them on the tools they need to better protect the space assets for which they are responsible. Authors can obtain submission guidelines online at
http://www.opsjournal.org/sub_guidelines.asp
To submit a paper, visit
http://www.opsjournal.org/sub_content.asp
A central theme of the journal is the technology and methods of space operations. The journal publishes papers in original research and surveys within the areas of the space environment, new technology, technology trends, operations procedures and practices, human factors, standards, space policy / law, communications, test & integration, and latest findings.
Aug 18, 2008 -- SWPC Web access was disrupted from 16:30 to 18:30 UT due to high NWS Hurricane Center web traffic. At this time, service has returned to normal.
Aug 13, 2008 -- SWPC experienced major hardware failures on Aug 5 and 8. Products have been restored but occassional short distruptions are possible this week. Please send problem reports to SWPC.CustomerSupport@noaa.gov
August 8, 2008 -- 1600UT Update -- A primary SWPC data ingest system failed August 7, at 2200UT. The following data streams are not available: Planetary Geomagnetic indices; POES satellite; USTEC GPS stations. Efforts to resolve the problem continue, but may take several days. All Web and FTP products that can be generated without the missing data are being updated routinely.
August 7, 2008 -- 2300UT Update -- On August 5, at 15:15 UT the SWPC web and anonymous
FTP sites experienced major equipment failures. At this time most web and ftp products are updating routinely. The last products are expected to return on August 8.
August 6, 2008 -- 0100UT Update-- On August 5, at 15:15 UT the SWPC web and anonymous FTP sites experienced major equipment failures. Some new web and ftp content is being updateded but other portions are not. Efforts to resolve the problems continue, but may take several days.
June 30, 2008 -- Conditions in the D-Region of the Ionosphere have a dramatic effect on
High Frequency (HF) communications and Low Frequency (LF) navigation systems like Loran.
SWPC has developed a new, global, D-Region Absorption Product, depicting the D-region
at high latitudes where it is driven by particles as well as low latitudes, where photons
cause the prompt changes. This new product merges all latitudes using appropriate displays,
and promises to be useful to customers such as commercial aviation and numerous maritime users.
April 14 , 2008 -- Beginning March 12, GOES 11 Proton, Electron and Magnetometer
instruments was turned off during eclipse periods. Maximum eclipse times were
March 18 0835 to 0945 UT. GOES 11 eclipse seasonended April 10.
April 14 , 2008 -- GOES 10 X-ray outages due to spacecraft eclipse
season started Feb 20 and ended April 5. Maximum eclipse
duration reached about 65 minutes March 11.
X-ray sensors (XRS) are not operational on other GOES satellites to fill
in for the GOES-10 eclipses.
SWPC
GOES Satellite Designations |
| Detector |
Primary |
Secondary |
| X-ray |
GOES 10 |
none |
| Proton |
GOES 11 |
GOES 10 |
| Magnetometer, Electron |
GOES 12 |
GOES 11 |
| Solar X-ray Imager |
none |
none |
February 11, 2008 -- GOES 11 X-ray data has been unavailable since Feb. 10. The expectation is that GOES 11 X-rays will remain unavailable. Other GOES 11 data is still available.
GOES 10 has been moved to the primary SWPC X-rays data. There is no secondary GOES X-ray data at this time. GOES 10 data resumed at 1630 UT Feb 10 and will continue indefinitely.
This forum will focus on the costs of space weather impacts and the benefits of improved space weather services with an emphasis on the anticipated needs of the user community in 2010-2020.
Our nation's rapid advances in the technology sector and our fast-growing dependency on space-based systems have resulted in an ever-increasing vulnerability to hazardous space weather. We seek to raise the Nation's awareness of the increasing importance of space weather forecasts, alerts, and warnings to our technologically affluent society and our future way of life on this planet, and in space. Space weather scientists and service providers seek to better understand and serve society's needs for space weather information.
The forum will consist of speaker presentations, followed by panel discussions designed to encourage productive dialogue among all attendees. The Forum is open to the public and is free, but pre-registration is required.
December 4, 2006 -- The SWPC Auroral Activity products were updated to include data from the NOAA Space Environment Monitor (SEM) onboard the European MetOp-02 satellite. The MetOp-02 satellite is a polar orbiting satellite carrying meteorological instruments developed by NOAA and the French Space Agency (CNES). The Space Environment Monitor (SEM) is a heritage instrument flown previously on the NOAA Polar Orbiting Environmental Satellites (POES) that measures energetic protons and electrons entering the atmosphere. The SEM data is used to provide information about the location and intensity of the auroral oval. The inclusion of the new data enhances the temporal and spatial coverage of the existing auroral products with now five satellites sampling the polar regions.
November 15, 2007 -- The Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) has updated its solar cycle product to include the official prediction for the next solar cycle. The official International Space Environment Service (ISES) prediction for solar cycle 24 was released in early 2007. The ISES prediction was issued by a panel chaired by a SWPC representative. It is important to note the panel has only issued a preliminary prediction and has released two separate predictions; a high prediction for sunspot maximum of 140 and a low prediction for sunspot maximum of 90. In the official SWPC product, the average of the two predictions is used. In the near term the two predictions are very similar, with the average not differing from either prediction by more than a SSN of 1 until October, 2008.
The two individual predictions released by the panel are also available from the SWPC solar cycle web page. It is expected the panel will release a consensus ISES prediction sometime during the early phase of solar cycle 24. At that time, the SWPC product will again be updated with the new prediction.
November 5, 2007 -- Data from the NASA STEREO mission in-situ instruments can now be viewed at the SWPC web site. Plots showing the solar wind plasma properties and the energetic electrons and protons measured at each STEREO satellite are updated in near-real-time are accessible from the SWPC STEREO Web site.
The STEREO mission consists of two spacecraft that are in heliocentric orbits leading and lagging the Earth. Each spacecraft provides a unique observing vantage point, and taken together, they enable a stereoscopic view of the Sun, solar activity, and the solar environment between the Sun and Earth. The STEREO mission studies the Sun and heliosphere with 4 suites of instruments. This web site brings you data from two of the instruments, the PLAsma and SupraThermal Ion Composition (PLASTIC) Instrument and the In-situ Measurements of Particles and CME Transients (IMPACT) Instrument. These two instruments provide measurements of the solar wind plasma, particles, magnetic field, and solar energetic protons, all quantities that are of significant use in forecasting space weather.
The near-real-time data, known as the Space Weather Beacon, from STEREO is a compressed, binned, subset of the full science data. The beacon data are broadcast continuously, and if no ground station is listening, the data will not be available until the full science data is dumped. The science data comes down once per day. Note: NOAA is not the general provider of STEREO data, the NASA STEREO project is. STEREO data that is not available on this web site, can be retrieve from the STEREO project.
On October 1, 2007 the NOAA Space Environment Center changed its name to the Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC). The center is one of the nine National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP)within NOAA's National Weather Service. The new name aligns the space weather center with the other NCEP centers and more clearly conveys its operational nature.
SWPC.noaa.gov is the new domain for web access (www.swpc.noaa.gov) and Anonymous FTP. The old domain, sec.noaa.gov, will continue to work for the foreseeable future. The simple web URL spaceweather.gov is also available.
The new name began appearing in web pages and product headers October 1. Web pages use NOAA web formatting standards and some have an updated look and feel, but the data displays and content did not change. Text and graphical products headers use Space Weather Prediction Center (or SWPC), but there were no changes to the file formats or content.
August 24, 2007 -- On 12 April 2007 the ability to point the SXI and XRS solar sensors aboard the GOES-12 spacecraft was lost due to the failure of a component in the electronics box that controls the north-south motion of both instruments. Although the SXI and XRS instruments continue to function, the Sun now enters the field of view only for a brief period twice a year at the equinoxes.
Since it appears highly unlikely that the pointing functionality can be ever be recovered, routine GOES-12 SXI and XRS observations have been suspended indefinitely. Some limited imaging may be attempted for engineering purposes during the equinoxes, but there is no plan at present to reactivate SXI and XRS in operational mode.
April 25, 2007 -- The official NOAA, NASA, and ISES Solar Cycle 24 prediction was released by the Solar Cycle 24 Prediction Panel on April 25, 2007. The Prediction Panel included members from NOAA, NASA, ISES and other US and International representatives. Press Briefings and presentations at the SEC Space Weather Workshop, plus additional announcements and information from the Panel are linked on the Solar Cycle 24 Prediction web site.
The 2007 SEC Space Weather Workshop was held April 24-27, 2007 in Boulder,
CO. Presentations from the Workshop are online
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www.weather.gov 
