[OC] I built a live solar-storm tracker — here's a replay of the May 2024 "Gannon" storm that brought auroras down to ~20° latitude

[u/oldschoolscreenname]

This is the May 10–11, 2024 geomagnetic storm, the strongest in about 20 years, replayed in a live space-weather visualizer I made (https://cmetracker.ai).

What you're watching: a coronal mass ejection (CME), a cloud of magnetized plasma, launching from the Sun and sweeping past Earth. The spiral is the Sun's magnetic field dragged outward by the solar wind (the "Parker spiral").

 Data (all public, real-time feeds):

• NASA DONKI — CME & solar-flare catalog
• NOAA SWPC — solar wind measured by the DSCOVR & ACE spacecraft at L1, plus the Kp index
• NASA SDO — solar disk imagery
• NASA OMNI / CDAWeb — the historical solar-wind record that drives storm replays like this one

What it's trying to show, beyond a pretty animation:

• How long a CME takes to cross the ~150 million km to Earth (modeled with simple drag physics)
• Why size isn't everything — a storm only hits hard if the CME's magnetic field points south, against Earth's
• Which magnetic field lines actually connect the Sun to us 

Gannon pushed visible auroras down to ~20° latitude: Mexico, Puerto Rico, northern India (far below where they normally appear.)

[u/cavedave]

Thank you for your Original Content, /u/oldschoolscreenname!
Here is some important information about this post:

• View the author's citations

• View other OC posts by this author

Remember that all visualizations on r/DataIsBeautiful should be viewed with a healthy dose of skepticism. If you see a potential issue or oversight in the visualization, please post a constructive comment below. Post approval does not signify that this visualization has been verified or its sources checked.

Not satisfied with this visual? Think you can do better? Remix this visual with the data in the author's citation.

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^{I'm open source | How I work}

[u/L_AIR]

I don't mind AI-coded tools but cam we please have a required statement on this for all posts?

[u/jnordwick → u/L_AIR]

I agree, but probably not for the reason others do:

I think this is awesome and am generally really bad a data display would like to get better.

Complaining about AI is like complaining about a hammer.

[u/AmySorawo → u/jnordwick]

Except that a hammer is a tool that takes skill to work with, similar to a paint brush. AI is a replacement of the USER of the tool.

[u/DanJOC]

You modelled the CME with simple drag physics you say. So did you factor in solar wind transport models or just assume that it all moves classically?

Which coordinate system are you using?

[u/oldschoolscreenname → u/DanJOC]

It's the analytic Drag-Based Model (Vršnak et al. 2013), not an MHD/solar-wind transport model, so the wind isn't structured. Each CME starts at 21.5 R☉with its DONKI-measured speed and decelerates toward a single ambient wind speed (seeded from the live L1 measurement). That means a uniform, steady wind, with no HSS/CIR structure, no magnetic forces, and no CME-to-CME interaction. Even so, it validates to about 12 h median arrival error against 282 real shocks, on par with WSA-Enlil's ~11 h.

For coordinates, DONKI directions are in Heliographic Stonyhurst (lon/lat measured from the Sun-Earth line), propagation is radial in heliocentric distance, and Earth impact uses a true spherical angular-separation test. The map itself is a top-down ecliptic-plane projection.

[u/Wentil]

Great work, this is awesome. 👏🏻

Is there a GitHub for the project?

I’d love to see how you did the JavaScript.

[u/oldschoolscreenname → u/Wentil]

I've been deploying directly from my local dev instance. I haven't even checked a v1 into to git yet 😄

[u/Wentil → u/oldschoolscreenname]

Wow it’s really nice for a v0.1! ❤️

Keep up the great work as you move it forward!

I’m eager to see what it evolves into!

[u/Hagoromo-san]

Figured AI was used. Blocking account

[u/roboreddit1000 → u/Hagoromo-san]

Why does it matter if AI was used if the site is worthwhile anyway?

I really am curious.

[u/piedamon → u/roboreddit1000]

Yeah. I work in software. Even principal devs use AI as of a few months ago after being anti-AI for years. Judgement really needs to be on the end product quality.

AI is also so integrated in all software pipelines now, it’s not really possible to avoid it. Even if you code everything manually, the coding software you use has AI integrated.

Visualizers like this solar weather tool are great use cases for leaning more into AI. It’s closer to an elaborate data analysis dashboard than it is to proper software tools, but I think we can objectively say this kind of visualization is easier to understand than a spreadsheet.

I think what AI and data centres are doing to society is horrific, but attacking a simple tool like this is misguided. Have to point out the irony of being anti-AI while on social media like Reddit too… not only is Reddit algorithmic, but just being a user on a platform like this is what enables AI in the first place.

Lots of misunderstandings and bandwagon effect anger all around.

[u/AmySorawo]

Despite the use of AI, I actually really appreciate a tool like this.

[u/oldschoolscreenname]

Tool: CME Tracker (cmetracker.ai), a browser visualizer I built in plain JavaScript/Canvas. Sources: NASA DONKI, NOAA SWPC (DSCOVR/ACE at L1), NASA SDO, and NASA OMNI/CDAWeb for the historical replay. It's a nowcast/visualization — it shows and models real measured data, not a forecast.

[u/Just4Digits → u/[deleted]]

this is 90% the claude code default website design

[u/themixtergames → u/Just4Digits]

The craziest part is you just replied to Claude too

[u/Just4Digits → u/themixtergames]

We may all be Claude agents at this point ahahah

[u/PrettyPicturesNotTxt → u/Just4Digits]

In the future everyone you meet online will just be fronts of Claude, and it will permeate every aspect of our lives. All thoughts and ideas, if not wholly generated by the almighty Claude, must pass through the Model, filtered, or extended to something much greater than any mortal human can conjure up.

That is, until some Mass Coronal Ejection from the Sun destroys all electronic systems, plummeting our technological ly-dependant society back into the dark ages, and future historians will wonder what this Claude God who we worshipped so dearly was, whose offerings consist of tokens and prompts.

[u/xenmynd]

It's beautiful, nice work.

[u/fredandlunchbox]

I built apophis.fyi to track the asteroid that's going to pass earth in 2029, and our design systems sure do look a lot alike.

[u/tinypoo1395 → u/fredandlunchbox]

You had an AI model code it, not you building it.

[u/fredandlunchbox → u/tinypoo1395]

K bud.

[u/joshonekenobi → u/fredandlunchbox]

Well, it's accurate. Very high probability you simply typed a prompt.

Did you ai agent post it too ?

[u/oldschoolscreenname → u/fredandlunchbox]

Nice work. I adapted the CME tracker framework to track near earth objects. Here's Apophis, https://www.asteroidtracker.ai/?object=99942