Solar Storm Today
What the Sun is doing to Earth right now — storm level, solar wind, flare probability. Quiet days and active days look different here, and you can see which is which at a glance.
Current Space Weather
Speed of the plasma stream reaching Earth. Calm days sit around 400 km/s; storm-capable days climb above 600.
When Bz goes negative (southward), it connects with Earth's field and energy pours in. The more negative, the stronger the coupling.
Chance of an M-class or X-class flare in the next 24 hours. Flares arrive in 8 minutes; the CME behind them arrives 1-3 days later.
Kp Forecast — Next 3 Days
NOAA prediction of the peak geomagnetic activity. Anything above 5 crosses into G-storm territory.
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See Tonight's Aurora Odds
Live Kp forecast + visibility map — find out if the lights reach your latitude tonight.
Open forecastWhat Is a Solar Storm
The Sun constantly streams charged particles — the solar wind — past Earth. Most of the time our planet's magnetic field deflects them cleanly, and life here continues unaware. A solar storm is what happens when the Sun sends something unusual: a coronal mass ejection, a strong flare, or a fast stream of wind from a coronal hole.
When that material hits Earth's magnetosphere, a chain of effects kicks off. The magnetic field gets compressed, electric currents surge in the upper atmosphere, the ionosphere heats and expands, and the aurora lights up at latitudes where it normally cannot be seen. That whole package is the geomagnetic storm.
The Kp index measures how disturbed Earth's field is, averaged over three-hour windows. NOAA translates that into the G-scale (G1 through G5), which is the number you'll see in news headlines and space-weather alerts.
G1-G5 Scale and Real-World Impacts
The G-scale is an impact scale, not just a severity label. Each level translates to concrete effects on the systems we depend on.
G1 Minor — Kp 5. Weak power grid fluctuations. Minor satellite orientation impacts. Aurora visible down to the US-Canada border and central Scandinavia. Happens about 900 days per 11-year solar cycle.
G2 Moderate — Kp 6. High-latitude power systems may see voltage alarms. HF radio propagation fades at high latitudes. Aurora down to mid-northern states (New York, Idaho). Roughly 360 days per cycle.
G3 Strong — Kp 7. Voltage corrections required on power systems. Intermittent HF radio loss. Surface charging on satellites. GPS accuracy may degrade. Aurora down to Illinois, Oregon, Virginia. About 130 days per cycle.
G4 Severe — Kp 8. Widespread voltage control problems, some protective systems may trip. Induced currents in pipelines. HF radio blackouts for hours. Satellite tracking difficult. Aurora down to Alabama, northern California. Roughly 60 days per cycle.
G5 Extreme — Kp 9. Grid collapse possible (Quebec, 1989). Transformers damaged. HF radio out for 1-2 days on sunlit side. Spacecraft can lose orientation. Aurora visible in Florida, southern Europe. 4 days per cycle on average — but solar maximum clusters them.
GPS, Radio, Power Grid — What Actually Happens
Most days the space weather just sits in the background and you never notice. When a storm arrives, the effects cascade through technology in recognisable ways:
GPS accuracy
During G3+ storms, the ionosphere becomes turbulent and GPS signals get scrambled on their way down. Single-frequency consumer GPS can drift 10-30 metres. Dual-frequency survey GPS copes better but precision work gets delayed.
HF radio
Amateur radio, maritime HF, and aviation polar routes rely on bouncing signals off the ionosphere. X-class flares cause immediate blackouts on the sunlit side of Earth; CME arrivals follow up with extended fades.
Power grid
Geomagnetically induced currents (GICs) flow through long conductors — transmission lines, pipelines, railway tracks — when the magnetic field changes rapidly. G4+ storms can trip protective relays. Quebec's 1989 blackout is the textbook case.
Satellites
The upper atmosphere heats and expands during storms, increasing drag on low-earth-orbit satellites. Starlink lost 40 satellites to a G1-G2 storm in February 2022. Electronics onboard can also accumulate static charges that damage circuits.
Health and How People Feel These Days
Space weather and human physiology is a quieter topic than satellites and power grids, but it matters to people who track how they feel. Research over several decades links geomagnetic storm days with modest upticks in migraine, cardiovascular stress, and sleep disturbance in sensitive populations. The effect sizes are small, the mechanisms debated, the individual variation large.
What many people report, without needing a mechanism to be proven, is this: storm days feel different. A bit off-kilter, a bit harder to focus, headaches more common, sleep shallower. Track your own pattern across a few G-storms and you'll know whether you're one of the sensitive ones. If you are, use the forecast — do easier tasks on storm days, protect sleep the night before.
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Listen to 7.83 Hz
Free in-browser binaural + isochronic tone generator at Earth's Schumann frequency.
Play nowQuestions People Ask
How fast does a solar storm reach Earth?
It depends on what left the Sun. An X-ray flare arrives in 8 minutes (speed of light). The CME — the cloud of plasma that actually drives the storm — takes 1-3 days. Fast streams from coronal holes move at solar-wind pace, roughly 2-4 days.
What's the difference between a flare and a CME?
A flare is a burst of X-rays and UV from the Sun's surface. A coronal mass ejection is a huge bubble of plasma and magnetic field that gets blown outward. Flares often happen with CMEs but not always — and it's the CME that drives a geomagnetic storm, not the flare itself.
How often does a G5 storm happen?
On average about 4 days per 11-year solar cycle, but they cluster near solar maximum. The last confirmed G5 was May 2024 (the aurora went to Florida and Spain). Before that, October 2003 ("Halloween storms"). Solar maximum years see several; solar minimum years see none.
Can a solar storm damage my phone or computer?
Not directly. Your devices are grounded, shielded, and indoor — the magnetic fluctuations reaching them are too weak to matter. The risk is indirect: power grid failures, satellite GPS/radio outages, and airline reroutes. Your gear is fine; the services it relies on can wobble.
Is the current solar cycle unusually active?
Solar Cycle 25 peaked higher than forecasters expected. The Sun flipped its magnetic poles faster and produced more sunspots than Cycle 24. That's why the 2024-2026 period has seen several strong aurora events reaching unusually low latitudes.
Can I tell a storm is coming before it arrives?
Yes, with some warning. The DSCOVR satellite sits between Sun and Earth and measures the solar wind about 30-60 minutes before it reaches us. NOAA publishes that data, and the Kp forecast extends 3 days out. This page pulls from both — check the "Kp Forecast" card.
Watching for Impacts?
See the full dashboard with 30-day history, correlation charts, and the Schumann resonance overlay.
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