Space Environment Center:  Unprecedented solar flares, and its funding may be cut (Ocober 30, 2003)

Today is Wednesday, October 29, 2003, as this being written.  Over the past two weeks as I write a new design for this page, I have been seeing the N3KL.org Solar Activity Monitor report M‑Class flares, and X‑class flares. And today I saw an unprecedented Mega Flare reported on the Monitor near the top of our site home page.

Amateur Radio Newsline reports on this in the October 24 edition.  The Monitor reports X Ray Status in five steps, each ten times as strong as the previous. Normal X Ray Status is at the bottom of the heap, with Active, then M‑Class Flare, then X‑Class Flare and lastly, a Mega Flare!  The Mega Flare is defined as a flare of unprecedented proportions.  Newsline's report says that flares currently coming off the sun are the biggest in recorded history.

This week's Newsline also reports that bills in both houses of Congress are in the works to chop funding of the Space Environment Center from the Commerce Department's National Oceananic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), according to reports from the CQ Magazine News Service.  The House bill would reduce funding, while the Senate version would eliminate it.  NOAA is the source of these solar updates and has provided radio amateurs with valuable information concerning radio propagation.

Follow this Google search result for up-to-date information on this issue.  As this is written, the latest news is dated October 30.