Sudden Ionospheric Disturbances (SID) Recorded During May 2001

The events listed above meet at least one of the following criteria

Reported in at least two observer reports Visually analyzed with definiteness rating = 5 Reported by overseas observers with high definiteness rating

Solar Events

Solar activity slowed a bit in May but there were a couple of active days that made things interesting. The 17th and 20th were the most active days, as is quite evident in the graph below. There was a total of 169 X-Ray flares recorded by the Goes - 8 Satellite. Eleven of them were M-class and the rest B and C. There were no major X-class flares. Observers measured 55 coordinated SID events, most of them of moderate duration.

This month a request was made for our data by an organization in England that does ionospheric research using a facility named IRIS located in the Netherlands. They have expressed interest in the data listed in the database section of the AAVSO SID page and have been given permission to use the data, presumably to correlate with their measurements. This is very exciting, and I hope that the data that we collectively gather can be of help to them. More information about their research can be found on the web site http://www.dcs.lancs.ac.uk/iono/iris/. Take a look and see where the fruits of your labor may be going.

• Back to May Solar Bulletin
• Sudden Ionospheric Disturbances Supplement