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.
Geomagnetic Disturbance Warning
11.11.2025 19:25 (PJM times are Eastern Standard).
PJM-RTO
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.
This 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!
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.
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.
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!
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.
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?
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.
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.
>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.
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.
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.
"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 .. 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?)
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.
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.
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.
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."
>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.
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.
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?
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.
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
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?
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.
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.
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.