Astronomy - Maine Aurora Borealis Watch

Good evening and welcome to the MABW weather desk. Current conditions are not great for aurora viewing, both due to poor alignment of the IMF and also the 90% moon. There is a smallish substorm in progress, but, with the moon, I don’t think we will have much chance. The main news is that we […]

Watch This Space.

October 13, 2025

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| MaineAuroraBorealisWatch

| 9:28 pm

This is what a solar synoptic map looks like. They are updated every three hours at SWPC, and give us all the information we need to know about Coronal Holes. Here is one such coronal hole, which should be geo-effective until about the 20th or so. It’s a bit bigger than the last trip around- […]

Why SWFO-L1 Matters

September 27, 2025

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| MaineAuroraBorealisWatch

| 5:11 am

This is another must read for aurora folks, because you will learn everything you need to know about the lives of the US satellites that have been bringing us space weather, have died in the line of service (RIP DISCOVR) and are about to be online. This is the main takeaway information you are about […]

Flare or CME? Geomagnetic Storm or Blackout?

September 20, 2025

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| MaineAuroraBorealisWatch

| 11:52 pm

We’ve had a few questions about NOAA scales for various solar burps. Particularly- “What is an M Class Flare?” What does this mean? There is a jazz tune called “Solar Flare,” and for the life of me, I can’t remember who wrote it, but I used to go along to Monday night jazz in my […]

Planet Parade, August 19, 2025

August 19, 2025

| 2 Comments

| MaineAuroraBorealisWatch

| 7:11 am

It was really hard to drag myself out of bed, since I was up until midnight, due to a geomagnetic substorm I was trying to pinpoint. NOAA data was lagging, and other data from other sources was also seemingly lagging. All I had was the NOAA three-day, which is a broad swath, the NEOC webcam, […]

November 11-12, 2025
Current G4 storming, severe level. For those like me who are in very cloudy conditions- We may get another very strong burst in an hour, and the clouds may clear out at that point for a couple hours. We may get some serendipity. For those like me who are in very cloudy conditions- We may get another very strong burst in an hour, and the clouds may clear out at that point for a couple hours. Sunspot Region 4274 produced an X 5.1 flare (R-3-Strong) Tuesday, November 11, 2025 at 13:43 UTC. We should see the effects of this in multiple CME occurrences between now and November 13. As of UTC rollover time, geomagnetic storm conditions are anticipated to continue into the night. An enhancement of the arriving IMF may hit within the hour, Maine time 11 pm. Southern Maine is reporting clear skies and photos of the aurora are being posted on the Facebook group. Midcoast, Central, Downeast, and Northern Maine are in the clouds, but clearing may occur. during the next burst. Current conditions now, 21:38 Maine Time Solar Wind Speed: 407 km/sec Solar Wind Magnetic Fields: Bt 35 nT, Bz -9 nT Current conditions about 15 minutes ago: Solar Wind Magnetic Fields: Bt 37 nT, Bz -24 nT Solar Wind Speed: 457 km/sec

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Category: Astronomy

November 2

Watch This Space.

Why SWFO-L1 Matters

Flare or CME? Geomagnetic Storm or Blackout?

Planet Parade, August 19, 2025