Index to Dr. T. Skov's Space Weather Data Aggregation Sites — Video Lecture Series "D"

— by

K. Fisher fisherka@ipns.com

Introduction

This note indexes a series of five lectures by Dr. Tamitha Skov PhD, on advanced websites that aggregate data related to radio wave interference and aurora produced by solar activity.

Skov is a prominent practicing solar physicist, who in weekly podcasts forecasts Sun-Earth space weather, aurora, and solar radiation to support power grid operators, airline crew exposed to high-altitude radiation, first responders, ham radio operators, and the aurora-chasing amateur astronomy community. Many public safety agencies rely on line-of-sight radio, which, like long-distance ham radio, is vulnerable to solar interference. Electrical grids can be overloaded by geomagnetic activity from solar storms, resulting in billions of dollars of losses from even a few hours of interruption of power grids and-or the Global Positioning System.

We live in a new golden age of amateur aurora chasing. With a collection of solar observing satellites coupled with advances in aurora computational modeling, aurora watching web cameras, and social media connectedness, it is now possible to track the progression of the southernmost point of the main auroral oval as it crosses the continental United States (CONUS) from the East Coast to the West Coast. These resources were not publicly available during the last 22-year great solar maximum of 2003 and its October 2003 Halloween Storm, i.e., The Gannon Storm, discussed below in Skov's "D4" Video Lecture. This writer's separate "Aurora Chasing Dashboard" curates links to governmental aurora chasing resources.

This new golden age has resulted in a plethora of advanced aurora-chasing websites, both governmental, academic and private, that interpret and display information collected by domestic and international weather agencies from both satellites and ground stations. There are many confusing options to consult. Dr. Skov's "D" series lectures review her collection of favorite informative recent sites. She discusses the context of each website for aurora chasing, and demonstrates each site's most useful features.

The "D" Series lectures are an outgrowth of Dr. Skov's Patreon fee-based service. She also teaches an online university course. Months after a Patreon lecture series, Skov generously releases the lectures series for free on her YouTube channel. The five "D" Series lectures run for over twenty-hours and each lecture repeats topics in prior lectures.

This dashboard is targeted to intermediate and advanced amateur aurora chasers. Other study resources are better suited to beginning aurora chasers.1

I. List of Skov "D" Series Lectures

II. How to use.

Five lecture videos are listed above coded D1, D2, D3, D4 and D5. For any topic line below, the hours and minutes at which that topic is discussed are indexed, e.g., for the line:

Use each video's slider to advance the video to the referenced time stamp.

III. Forecasting Data Aggregation Sites and Subpages

IV. Less Well-Known Forecasting Data Aggregation Sites

V. Geochron

GEOCHRON (streaming / commercial product) — (D5 3:36; D4 0:18; D3 0:10) — geochron.com and geochron.com/products

VI. Miscellaneous Additions by K. Fisher