2 CME's to strike earth on the 28th

[John Collins]

A CME is a Coronal Mass Ejection from the sun. It can play havoc with vertical guidance on a WAAS approach. There is a distinct chance that you will experience a downgrade on a LPV during the solar storm, particularly in the northern part of the US and Canada. I have added the website http://spaceweather.com/ to my preflight planning. From their website:

The odds of a geomagnetic storm on Dec. 28th are improving with the launch of two CMEs toward Earth in less than 24 hours. NASA's STEREO-B spacecraft photographed this one on Dec. 26th:

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According to a forecast track prepared by analysts at the Goddard Space Weather Lab, the cloud should squarely strike Earth's magnetic field on Dec. 28th at 20:22 UT (+/- 7 hours). Another CME could deliver a glancing blow a few hours earlier on the same date. The double impact is expected to spark mild-to-moderate geomagnetic storms at high latitudes.​

 

[azure]

This should be interesting. I'll be under the hood from 21Z through 23Z tomorrow. At least if I lose WAAS, I'll know why.

On the bright side, if it's clear tomorrow night we might have a very nice auroral display.

 

[DutchessFlier]

Damn Liz...after all you've been through with your plane and the quest for your IR ain't it just fitting that solar flare activity is the next on your hit parade!!!!

Sheesh

 

[Jaybird180]

Too bad those Hale Bopp folks drank the Kool-Aid before the 2012 Rapture.

 

[azure]

There wasn't any WAAS outage while I was shooting approaches as far as I could tell... we did the RNAV 27L @ PTK which has LPV minimums, and it was not downgraded. I didn't see any aurora, but it clouded over around here shortly after sunset.