Site News

25 May 2013 – Daily forecast status indicators for solar, geomagnetic and ionospheric conditions can be Green (normal), Yellow (moderate activity) or Red (disturbed). The IPS Space Weather page shows current conditions.
01 May 2013 – Pre-release of Advanced Stand Alone Prediction System (ASAPS) Version 6.2 software patch. This patch is free for existing ASAPS 6 customers and includes improvements and bug fixes to increase the usability of the program under Windows 7 and 8. More
27 Mar 2013 – Under severe space weather conditions there is increased risk of impacts to critical infrastructure. These messages are only issued for "high end" events most likely to result in severe space weather. More
30 Jan 2013 – A large number of changes were made to the IPS website over the last few months to improve WCAG 2.0 compliance. This round of changes is now complete.
18 Dec 2012 – A new online tool is available that combines the functions of several HF prediction tools into one application and provides a revised user interface. Please let us know what you think. More
12 Oct 2012 – In addition to the existing ionospheric scintillation map produced using the IPS scintillation monitor (ISM) network, we now have available a map with a broader and denser coverage derived from GPS receiver data. This complements the ISM map which is a more accurate measure of scintillation, but with a smaller region of coverage. More
03 Sep 2012 – 1 hour outage from 3UT for essential work on Internet equipment. During this time all Web/ftp services will be unavailable.
30 Apr 2012 – Maps for the last 3 days, in 15 minute intervals, of the GPS and ionosonde driven IPS Australian Regional Total Electron Content (TEC) model can now be viewed interactively in the Satellite section. More
30 Apr 2012 – An estimate of the IPS Australian Regional Total Electron Content (TEC) model accuracy is now produced in near real time. Estimated accuracy maps are available here. More
17 Apr 2012 – At around 3:45AM AEST on the 17th of April a large Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) was observed around the eastern limb of the Sun. While spectacular, the ejected material is not directed Earthward, but the sunspot region responsible is about to rotate on the visible Sun and may produce geo-effective CMEs in the coming days. Click through for a movie courtesy of NASA/SDO. More
09 Mar 2012 – The anticipated solar wind shock from the X-class flare of March 07 arrived at around 11UT today March 08. However, the magnetic field within the shock front was oriented such that minimal coupling into the Earth's magnetic field occurred. Although geomagnetic storms were observed at all latitudes, geomagnetic disturbance was much less than predicted.
07 Mar 2012 – Active solar region 1429 produced a flare peaking at the X5.4 level at approximately 0024UT March 07. Shortwave fadeouts were observed across the Australasian region. More to follow as information comes to hand. More
23 Feb 2012 – Learmonth Solar Observatory was hit by lightning early Thursday morning 23rd Feb. Many instruments have been affected by the strike, and staff are currently evaluating the situation. Currently no observation data is available More
01 Feb 2012 – The anticipated significant geomagnetic activity from the CME (coronal mass ejection) associated with the solar flare observed on 23 January was milder than expected, particularly at low-middle latitudes. The CME did impact the Earth in the early morning hours of 25 January (AEST) as forecast accompanied by a relative large change in solar wind speeds, however, the orientation of magnetic field carried with the CME was opposite to that required to produce large storms at lower latitudes. Auroral displays were observed at high latitudes.
30 Jan 2012 – Advanced Stand Alone Prediction System (ASAPS) Version 6.1 software patch released for download. This patch is free for existing ASAPS 6 customers and includes improvements and bug fixes to increase the usability and stability of the program. More
16 Jan 2012 – IPS Culgoora Observatory offline due lighting strike on power lines. The power spike protection system took 2 big hits and we are currently waiting for replacement components before power is restored to the site. More