It looks like the Space Weather Prediction Centre, which supplies the forecasts for NOAA, were overly cautious last week. Despite predicting geomagnetic disturbances, we had quite a calm week. The Kp index rose to 3.33 on a few occasions, but that was it. We ended up with settled geomagnetic conditions and a solar flux index […]

The last week was good from a geomagnetic disturbance point of view. Up until Wednesday, the 25th, the Kp index had not been higher than 3.67, and had mostly been in the ones and twos. This helped HF propagation to a great extent. Sunspots have been present with the solar flux index sitting at 120 […]

Last week we mentioned a large coronal hole on the Sun that might cause problems. The hole is so large that it is still Earth-centric seven days later. We had expected the hole to increase the Kp index due to the solar wind emanating from it. However, as of Thursday, 19 June, conditions remained quiet […]

Propagation was a mixed bag last week with occasional Kp index rises but a solid solar flux index which hit 141 on Thursday 12 June. We also had some Sporadic-E short-skip conditions on the HF bands which brought some surprises. We are now in June so the summer HF doldrums are well under way. But […]