We won't know any actionable detail till about 1 hour before it arrives at Earth. That's when interplanetary coronal mass ejections actually have their magnetic field orientation and intensity measured by ACE and other satellites far out at the L1 lagrange point: https://services.swpc.noaa.gov/images/ace-mag-swepam-24-hour...
If you see the red line on this plot^, the interplanetary magnetic field, be more than -10 nanotesla for about 4 hours then there's a good chance of lower than normal latitude aurora. Negative means the magnetic field is pointing downwards out of the ecliptic plane of the solar system and this is the most energetically favorable orientation for reconnecting CME magnetic field lines with Earth's magnetic field lines and letting solar particles/energy in.
It can be 20nT positive (upwards) magnetic field with intense density and high velocity but still be a non-event aurora-wise just because energy is delivered to the Earth's ring currents at 10x slower rate than if it's pointing downwards.
None of the WSA-ENLIL or related predictive models take into consideration the magnetic field orientation of iCMEs because it's really hard to know from remote observations. They can be thought of as warnings to pay attention to the ACE L1 measurements.
Thanks a lot for sharing this. Yours is a truly outstanding comment. I am so glad that sometimes here on HN I find little gems like this one.
Have you considered writing something longer on the subject? Or have you done so, and would you mind sharing links?
Nice comment. Thanks for explaining
US power grid info:
PJM:
A Geomagnetic Disturbance Warning has been issued for 19:25 on 11.11.2025 through 04:00 on 11.12.2025 . A GMD warning of K7 or greater is in effect for this period.Geomagnetic Disturbance Warning 11.11.2025 19:25 (PJM times are Eastern Standard). PJM-RTOThis is only a warning. There are no listed actions being taken. When you see Geomagnetic Disturbance Action, not just Warning, there's a problem. That happened most recently on June 1, 2025. Extra people are probably on standby all night in case something happens.
CAISO: Nothing.
ERCOT: Nothing.
Hydro-Québec: Multiple snow-related outages near Montreal and some other locations.
Background info from the last time HN got wound up about this.[1]
So then "Montreal and some other locations" probably had the best views of any densely populated areas to watch the Aurora: When power is out, light pollution is no longer a problem!
PJM warning is still in effect as of the next morning, but there are still no related actions.
PJM closed out the warning at 11.13.2025 04:00 EST. No emergency actions were required. Incident over.
The Swiss Weather Office official app has a crowdsourced photo gallery:
https://www.meteosuisse.admin.ch/services-et-publications/ap...
Look at the pictures from 3AM onwards on the 12 of November: you'll have a nice overview of how the aurora looked like from Switzerland (it's a time sensitive app and they certainly don't keep the pictures forever).
The curvature of the Earth can be deducted from those photos on the map! It is clear to see the aurora completely above the horizon in the Northern Swiss photos, and straddling the horizon in the photos from the south.
This photo gallery also provides very nice pictures around Germany and the Alps: https://www.foto-webcam.eu/2025/11/12/0330
https://Spaceweather.com has a link to some photos taken in El Salvador at 13N Lat. Last night was a great show for sure.
I enjoyed it for about 5 hours out here west of DFW. I hope the actual X5.1 event due to arrive in the next 3-5 hours will persist into the evening so I get another show.
[1] is a real-time forecast for the auroral oval. See if you are in with a chance. Clear Skies!
[1] https://www.spaceweatherlive.com/en/auroral-activity/auroral...
They seem to be scraping the forecast images from https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/communities/aurora-dashboard-exper...
Hmm. It says my city has 0% chance of visibility but I'm looking at it outside right now.
Atlantic Canada is sorely underrepresented on the city charts, even though many locations would have amazing viewing.
I saw this in the Denver area in Colorado, US an hour and a half ago. I looked up and couldn’t believe the sky was red. Took me a while to realize it was the aurora borealis. Very cool!
Pics I took in Denver!
15 min ago I saw it north from Denver - half of the sky was red.
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Checking in from Littleton - saw it as well! My friend all the way from Grand Junction CO posted photos too
Reports of seeing the aurora right now across North America down to the US/Mexico border. If that describes you and you're not under cloud cover (like I unfortunately am) I'd recommend going outside and finding somewhere dark with a clear view north.
Cell phone cameras see it better than people for whatever reason, so looking at it through your phone is an option.
Request for "very low latitude" pictures from a researcher here: https://bsky.app/profile/vincentledvina.bsky.social/post/3m5...
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Fully visible with naked eye in Kansas City. Beautiful magenta hues in the sky. My first time seeing an aurora in person.
I see it as well in southern KC. I've been to Alaska in the winter with hopes to the see the Northern Lights. Pretty awesome to see it this far south!
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I know there are a lot of comments from people saying they’ve seen it, but as I understand it this solar flare won’t hit until 16h UTC, or about 12 hours from now, and there are two weaker flares hitting about now that are currently visible? Is that understanding correct?
Yes, and it's in the article.
So - even bigger tomorrow? Tonight was pretty amazing.
I'm in Ireland and went out last night to try and find it, last year I got some spectacular photos from my bedroom window. Alas it only peaked as it was over the US so sadly I missed out.
Ireland is far enough north that we actually get the aurora somewhat regularly. We rarely have clear skies though, making it a true "planets align" thing to actually see it.
There were some beautiful ones overhead around 2am and I slept right through them. Ah well.
You can see the real time magnetic field change when it hits: https://dasi.barlow.cpi.com/dashboard
This seems to be a distinct but similar magnetometer network, with global reach,
https://intermagnet.org/data_download.html
Example data, (Neumayer Station III in Antarctica)
https://imag-data.bgs.ac.uk/GIN_V1/GINForms2?observatoryIaga...
I wonder why there doesn't seem to be any website with a map view of all of the planet's magnetometers. Looks like there should be more than enough data to make an interesting livemap.
Here's a list of the sites,
https://www.gfz.de/en/section/geomagnetism/infrastructure/ge...
>I wonder why there doesn't seem to be any website with a map view of all of the planet's magnetometers. Looks like there should be more than enough data to make an interesting livemap.
Another project for the queue...
This has a pretty good view of the aurora now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfF9bhaBuvw
That's really cool! But that's actually one of the previous CMEs, not this one. Very nice to see nonetheless.
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Nice. Looks like it was peaking around 21:00 - 22:00 local time, got pretty intense for a while.
Aurora is going pretty strong here in northern Minnesota, filling most of the sky. A jet is going over way up there right now, they must be getting a hell of a show.
Also: 100 % cloud cover in basically all of Northern Europe :/ Iceland is probably the place to be for the aurora show!
Scotland, 56 degrees north - I was able to see the aurora through occasional gaps in fast moving clouds around 0400hrs. Red, easily visible to the naked eye.
In northern Germany, it seems like clouds will clear up tomorrow night, when the CME arrives, according to meteoblue? I can only hope.
Yep. It's raining pretty hard here in the North East of the UK. Not much point in going to look.
Note to non-UK readers:
Most of the time when someone says they are in the “North East of the UK” it’s not some Scotsman up in Shetland it is an English person who is currently in the North East of England.
The North East of England is in the middle part of the UK mainland.
Similarly, the part of your body commonly referred to as “the bottom” is in fact closer to half-way down and not at the bottom at all.
I will leave any possible joke about being legless after a night out in Newcastle-upon-Tyne to the experts.
"Most of the time when someone says they are in the “North East of the UK” it’s not some Scotsman up in Shetland it is an English person who is currently in the North East of England."
So you think this is simply wrong? (Like this)
(Wrong reply, too late to delete)
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So .. they don't see scotland as part of the UK anyway? Why was it such an issue then that they wanted to leave? (And why were there bloody wars fought about it in the first place?)
I think most people say "the North East" as a synecdoche for "the North East of England". the commenter being referred to likely just misspoke
Who wanted to leave? What wars?
Scotland the UK? (They were allowed to vote in the end and voted to remain)
And wars happened when scotland was forced to become part of the UK in medieval times. (Braveheart)
So Scotland didn’t want to leave. And Scotland didn’t unite with England until after the Scottish King took over he English throne hundreds of years after the time of William Wallace
You might be confusing the U.K. with the USA where a pet of the country there wanted to leave and were refused and that did lead to war, and that happened far more recently than 700 years ago.
Where most of Scotland did not want to be independent
Someone with a tiny little...um...axe to grind and not enough sense to take it someplace where people care. You can tell when they have to go back to Culloden to try and drag something up to wave around.
Yep, clouds... clouds everywhere https://weather.metoffice.gov.uk/maps-and-charts/cloud-cover...
It's raining off and on in London as well.
No sun ‘til next week :-(
"...geomagnetic storm watch for tomorrow as the cloud could impact our planet as early as 16 UTC on 12 November"
UK in November... It'll be raining again tomorrow.
Ah, but tonight it's raining protons
If you're in [redacted], was visible about 15m ago https://imgur.com/a/36cncec
Not so much now, but maybe it'll come back!
Down in northern Missouri too
Upstate South Carolina as well
Dad sent me a photo [1] from Alaska of the red light. He said they rarely get it "so far south" (he is in southern Alaska).
[1] (Not a great photo, but you get the idea.) https://imgur.com/a/TfkcbJQ
On the Kenai Peninsula? Great spot if so!
Yep, Homer.
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The flare is delaying a rocket launch due to concerns about the potential impact on the payload (two spacecraft bound for Mars):
"NG-2 Update: New Glenn is ready to launch. However, due to highly elevated solar activity and its potential effects on the ESCAPADE spacecraft, NASA is postponing launch until space weather conditions improve. We are currently assessing opportunities to establish our next launch window based on forecasted space weather and range availability."
Love the use of space weather
G4 reached...
https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/news/g4-severe-storm-levels-reache...
>G4 (Severe) Storm Levels Reached! published: Wednesday, November 12, 2025 01:40 UTC G4 (Severe) storm levels reached on 12 November at 0120 UTC (8:20pm EST)! Geomagnetic storm conditions are anticipated to continue into the night. Stay informed at spaceweather.gov for the latest. The included aurora images are of the aurora shining over northeastern Colorado.
Be aware that this is from a previous X flare, afaik
> could impact our planet as early as 16 UTC on 12 November
Is that 16:00 or 00:16?
16 hundred hours; 16:00. Since revised down to midday (12 UTC).
https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/sites/default/files/styles/pad_sid...
Bad timing for North America Eastern TZ - day break here. Pacific/Mountain TZ should be fine.
In Rhode Island it seems like auroras practically guarantee overcast skies.
Update: tonight the sky is clear and the air is frigid. I guess this logically implies there won't be an aurora :)
ISO timestamps are the one true way:
2025-11-12T16Z
Shameless plug: active region (and sunspot group) 4274 has already produced several X-class solar flares, alas, I didn't manage to catch one during my short weekend imaging session. Though there was a nice prominence; 38-min time lapse (Earth to scale):
Is there a way to connect the Alert/Warnings/Watches from SWPC to specific events? It seems like there are at least three different solar events and it's hard for me to understand if they've all passed or if we're expecting more.
The CME from the X5.1 flare has not arrived yet. Here are the websites I use:
https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/communities/space-weather-enthusia...
That's what I'm most curious about -- how do you see that it hasn't arrived yet when you're looking at SWPC?
Here is the SWPC forecast [0]
Time_UTC,Nov_12,Nov_13,Nov_14
00-03UT,8.67 (G4),6.67 (G3),4.67 (G1)
03-06UT,8.33 (G4),6.33 (G2),4.00
06-09UT,7.00 (G3),6.00 (G2),3.33
09-12UT,7.00 (G3),4.67 (G1),3.67
12-15UT,6.00 (G2),4.00,3.33
15-18UT,5.67 (G2),3.33,3.00
18-21UT,7.67 (G4),4.33,3.00
21-00UT,6.00 (G2),4.67 (G1),3.33
So I guess 18-21UTC today it'll get around 7.7kP, but that's lower than what hit this morning, when I'd expect X5.1 to be larger? Is that how I should interpret this?
[0] https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/communities/space-weather-enthusia...
Yes, you have it correct.
However, predicting the effects of solar flares is very difficult. Not only does the particle stream have to hit the Earth, it has to couple with the magnetic field.
Large flares can cause small events on Earth and vice versa.
Thanks for clarifying. I’m bummed that I didn’t prioritize going out last night to observe. I was thinking bigger glare would be better aurora tonight.
I also use https://spaceweathernews.com/ Lots of data in there for us to see the sources and effects
G4 is happening now https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/alerts-watches-and-warnin...
D Información de las representativas fórmulas para encuestar e secuestrar el circulo matemático q carcule la fuerza de velocidad es en el encontrar la física cuántica
This aurora looks predominantly red. The last big one had pinks and greens easily visible to the naked eye. I wonder what causes the difference.
Has all to do with solar flare energy levels and how/where it interacts in the atmosphere. [1][2]
[1]: https://www.space.com/aurora-colors-explained
[2]: https://www.nps.gov/articles/-articles-aps-v8-i1-c9.htm
A severe geomagnetic storm is starting now (November 12 0000Z). But it's from the previous X-flares (X1.7 and X1.2), not the X5.1 flare.
From what I’ve read that could be bad, because prior flares can clear a path (through the solar wind) for later flares to move faster and hit harder.
Right, this three punch combo couldn't have been planned better.
Down in Victoria, Australia. Looks like the clouds should clear just in time for night fall and a decent show. Very cool.
Billions of tonnes of matter ejected at millions of kph. It’s shame we can’t harness that energy.
Perhaps we should start with more local less violent events like hurricanes and volcanic eruptions.
The regular photons are a start
it would have to be quite the harness.
I can currently photograph this on my mobile phone in seattle from my backyard, good times!
what effect if any will the solar flare emissions have on the new ish constellation style satellite networks? and or vice versa? EG would a shielded group or constellation provide a pathway for charge particles around the Earth?
Too bad, it's not about a wristwatch that displays geomagnetic storms.
Are we doomed by the next Carrington Event?
That one was weak. Try https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miyake_event instead.
Possibly, but not from this event, it isn't nearly that strong.
Carrington event 2.0?
Definitely no.
Not yet, there's a whole bunch of wildcards in the air right now.
looks like i'll be going out tonight
I'm disappointed I missed it, I had disabled my Aurora phone alert after it woke me up for a 1% chance of seeing it a few weeks ago. I saw a bit of light in SE Michigan at about 1:30 AM EST, but just a tinge of green.
It's not over - check back tonight.
relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/2233/
cool super amazing
Could this destroy the ISS?
No, they'll just get a spectacular view of the aurora.
no
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Aren't transformers protected these days? I thought they had all been outfitted with automated safety disconnects ages ago pretty much everywhere. Obviously most transformers going offline all of a sudden is still a pretty scary situation, but recovery should be on the order of days, not months.
Bot comment. Its not x its y… Why bother?
You lose GPS, which breaks real-time power grid management
Why? Power infrastructure isn't moving, and ntp is plenty accurate enough for timekeeping here; no need for GPS clocks.
Another addition to Falsehoods programmers believe about time. A scary one.
Can you expand on this, or reccomend some reading. Genuinely curious
He’s referencing this classic blog post: https://infiniteundo.com/post/25326999628/falsehoods-program...
Discussed on HN here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32548085
