Evidence review · S0 News, 1 November 2026

S0 News, November 1, 2026: a “super aurora” chart that undercounts the past

On November 1, 2026, S0 News showed a chart of “super aurora” and said “Every super aurora in history was during a KP9 solar storm”, while this cycle did it “without KP9 events for four of the five, 80%” [1 00:02:52–00:02:55][1 00:03:08–00:03:10]. The chart’s Kp 9 is 9o, and no single reading makes both sentences true: on 9o, a photograph from central Florida in April 2000, at 9−, breaks “every” [2][3], and if 9− counts, four of five becomes one of five. By Florida’s name cycle 23 comes close, though this cycle got there faster and from fewer big storms, which supports the episode’s contrast that far; cameras fit it better than a dipole 1% weaker, which moves the auroral oval tenths of a degree where storm size moves it 5–12° (our analysis) [4][5 §3]. The episode’s Sun holds up and its weather mostly does; its two links are checked on their own pages.

By Fact-Checked Science · Published November 1, 2026

Our analysis marks our own reasoning and calculations, and the verdicts are our assessment. Everything else comes from the numbered sources. For the episode [1], times are positions in the video; for the papers, Abstract names the part we used, § a section, p. a page and Table a table. The space weather centres’ times are UTC.

Code and numbers Download as PDF Sources How this was checked Corrections

On no single reading of Kp 9 do both sentences hold, and aurora can’t time the field

Our assessment

80% or 20%

Our analysis: this cycle’s five storms without Kp 9. Count only 9o, as the episode’s chart does, and four of five lack it; count 9− too, and only one does [1][3].

4, not 2

Our analysis: storms of cycle 23 for which Spaceweather.com names Florida, against 2 on the chart, one storm split [2][6]. Three of the four reached only 9− [3], but only April 2000 has a Florida photograph we could find. This cycle has 5, sooner and from fewer big storms.

0–0.3°

Our analysis: how far the dipole’s 1.04% fall from 2003 to 2024 moves an oval edge at 45–55° [4][7 p. 3669]. Storm size moves it 5–12° between this cycle’s storms, and Florida itself moved 1.0–1.6° the other way.

The episode’s claims

False

Every super aurora was Kp 9

“Every super aurora in history was during a KP9 solar storm. Not every KP9 event made them, but that’s what we needed in the recipe.” [1 00:02:52–00:03:01]

Kp begins in 1932; before that the chart’s values are its own estimates [1]. On the chart’s reading, 9o, the claim fails. In April 2000, at 9−, a photograph shows aurora over an observatory in central Florida [2][3]. At Florida’s magnetic latitude or lower, also at 9−, aurora was reported from Patras in January 1938 and Mori in September 1957, on one report each [8 §4] [9 §4]. Spaceweather.com’s sentences also name Florida in November 2001 and 2003, with no Florida photograph in its galleries. Count 9− as well and those pass, but aurora stood overhead at Los Angeles, inside Florida’s magnetic band, in January 1938 at Kp 8+ [5 Table 1]. See section 4.

Misleading

Four of five without Kp 9

“did it without KP9 events for four of the five, 80%.” [1 00:03:08–00:03:10]

The sum is right on the chart’s own reading, Kp 9o, which is also NOAA’s G5, with 9− in G4 [1][10]: only May 2024 reached 9o [3]. What that hides: three of the four reached 9−, a third of a step short, so counting 9− leaves one of five, March 2023. And cycle 23’s Florida storms show the same pattern: three of four lacked 9o, though two of the three rest on sentences [2][6]. See section 3.

Overstated

Blew away the aurora record

“we’ve not only blown away the super auroral record” [1 00:03:03–00:03:06]

The chart has 5 against at most 2 in any earlier cycle, and it marks its own 5 as qualified or borderline [1]. There is something to it. Florida is named for all 4 of this cycle’s storms at Kp 9− or more, against 4 of cycle 23’s 10, and for 5 storms by now against 2 at the same point in cycle 23 (our count) [2][6] [3]. But by name that is 5 against 4 over the whole of cycle 23, one of the 5 is Unconfirmed, cameras changed what gets recorded [11 Abstract], and no one has counted every cycle by one standard. See section 5.

False

Aurora shows pole shift’s speed

“That’s how fast Earth’s magnetic pole shift is advancing.” [1 00:03:10–00:03:14]

The dipole is weakening about 5% a century, on average no faster in the last decade [4]: slow for people, though fast by the core’s own standards, as our guide says, which may be what the title’s “Rapid Decay” means. But the chart shows no rate of decay. By published scalings the dipole’s 1.04% fall since 2003 moves the oval’s edge 0–0.3° [7 p. 3669]; storm size moves it 5–12° between this cycle’s storms [12 Abstract][5 §3]; and Florida’s magnetic latitude fell 1.0–1.6°, away from the oval (our analysis). As in stop 8, the evidence contradicts it. See section 8.

Unconfirmed

March 2023 hit Florida too

“And well, we missed one. The March 2023 event hit Florida, too.” [1 00:02:15–00:02:18]

The record exists, and the episode shows it: one 26-minute exposure at Chiefland, 29.4° N. Spaceweather.com headed it red auroras over Florida, and a closing note judged aurora most likely, over airglow [13 Mar. 27]. As shown on screen, the annotated photo marks the aurora with a question mark [1 00:02:20–00:02:28]. The geometry allows it, and allows a SAR arc too (our analysis). But we found no second record, and the site’s first reports stopped at New Mexico [13 Mar. 24]. See section 6.

True

Quiet Sun, G2 from coronal hole

“No significant solar flares” [1 00:00:31–00:00:33] “Noah had forecast the previous coronal hole stream would trigger storm conditions and they did.” [1 00:00:43–00:00:48]

SWPC’s edited events hold 8 flares in the 24 hours before the upload, all class B, the largest B5.9 [14]. A G1 watch for the coronal hole’s stream dated from October 28, and the storm reached G2 at 19:14 UTC on October 31 [15]. The wind peaked near 615 km/s about 22:00 UTC [16]. “Already waning back to normal” is right on the waning, as SWPC’s gradual decline shows [16], though at the upload the speed was still about 500 km/s [17]. See section 9.

1 · The episode

The Sun, the weather, two links and a chart of “super aurora”, in four minutes

The episode of November 1, 2026, ran 3 minutes 59 seconds. Its two links are a review of early warning for tipping points in the biosphere [18] and a preprint on a sudden commencement near the South American Magnetic Anomaly [19], each checked on its own page. Its “big story” has no link behind it: a chart of “super aurora” [1 00:00:20–00:00:27].

In the episode’s words

Quoted from the automatically generated transcript, which has “Noah” for NOAA, “flidian” for Floridian, “h 100red-year” for hundred-year and, probably, “the cycle” for this cycle and “Semenenko” for Simonenko. The video went up at 12:09 UTC [1].

“But the big story we’re dropping today is in the data. The finalized full-scale three-month look at super aurora and space weather data. It’s bad.”
S0 News [1 00:00:20–00:00:27]

“And this chart is the one we showed before with this cycle coming off the rails.”
S0 News [1 00:02:11–00:02:15]

The argument takes about 70 seconds [1 00:02:02–00:03:14]. The chart counts aurora at “Florida equivalent latitude” per solar cycle. March 2023 is added, which makes five this cycle; a storm of cycle 23 is split in two; Kp 9 storms are added to the chart. Then come the sentences on our verdict panel: every super aurora needed Kp 9, this cycle’s mostly did without it, and that is how fast the pole shift is advancing.

Our analysis

“Three-month look”: Unverified

What the episode shows of its “finalized full-scale three-month look” is about 68 seconds, from 00:02:06 to 00:03:14: three versions of one chart and one web article [1]. The description’s links are the two papers; it gives no data file, event list or method for the chart, and “three-month” isn’t explained [1]. We could not find the work it describes, so we can check only what is on screen.

2 · The chart

Aurora counts by cycle beside Kp 9o, with its own peak marked as qualified

We read the chart from the episode’s video: YouTube’s public preview frames first, then a 1080p frame for the small text [1]. Here it is in words, with its numbers as read. It isn’t ours to show, so this page hosts no frame.

Three versions on screen

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Video position	On screen	What it adds
00:02:06–00:02:18	Version 1: aurora at about Florida’s latitude, per solar cycle, cycles 10–25	A note says zeros are assumed for cycles with no documented low-latitude event; cycle 25 stands at 4
00:02:20–00:02:28	The Watchers’ article of March 28, 2023, on red aurora in Florida [20]	Its annotated photo, with the aurora marked by a question mark
00:02:30–00:02:50	Version 2	Cycle 25 at 5, cycle 23 at 2, cycle 19 at 1. Hollow marks mean borderline or qualified. A footer credits its counts to “CONSENSUS v1.5”, with “Ben” signing off
00:02:52–00:03:14	Version 3: aurora beside Kp 9o storms per cycle	A footer says what Kp 9o means: “Kp9o = GFZ max 9o”. The subtitle says Kp 9o counts before 1932 are floors, tagged [E]; the footer tags cycles 10–16 [E]

Video positions from the frames, good to about 2 seconds. The words on screen are paraphrased, except those in quotation marks [1].

The chart’s numbers as read, beside our count from GFZ

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Cycle	Year	Aurora, version 1	Aurora, versions 2 and 3	Kp 9o, on the chart	Kp 9o, our count
10	1860	1	1	2	no Kp
11	1870	1	1 ○	2	no Kp
12	1883	0	0	1	no Kp
13	1894	0	0	1	no Kp
14	1906	0	0	2	no Kp
15	1917	1	1 ○	1	no Kp
16	1928	0	0	0	0, from 1932
17	1937	1	1	5	5
18	1947	0	0	2	2
19	1958	0	1	7	7
20	1968	0	0	3	3
21	1979	1	1 ○	2	2
22	1989	1	1	1	1
23	2001	1	2	2	2
24	2014	0	0	0	0
25	2024	4	5 ○	1	1

Read from the episode’s frames [1 00:02:06–00:03:14]; ○ marks a hollow point on versions 2 and 3, which the chart says means qualified or borderline. The year is the chart’s label for the cycle. Our count: storms with a three-hour Kp of 9o in GFZ’s record, runs of days merged, by the cycle dates of our review of October 28 [3]. Kp does not exist before 1932, so the chart’s earlier values are its own estimates.

Our analysis

What reading it settles, and what it can’t

It settles what “KP9” means here. The chart’s Kp line matches our count from GFZ’s file in all nine cycles from 17 to 25, and its footer says 9o, so the presenter’s spoken “KP9” is 9o [1][3]. It can’t tell us which storms are on the aurora line. The chart names none and gives no sources, and neither it nor the presenter defines “Florida-equivalent” as geographic or magnetic. Our mapping of its points to storms is inference: cycle 10 as 1859, cycle 11 as 1872, cycle 15 as 1921, cycle 22 as 1989, cycle 23 as October 2003, cycle 25 as the five of section 6. We can’t identify cycles 17, 19 and 21. Two details don’t reach the words: cycle 19 goes from 0 to 1 between versions, unmentioned; and the Kp line counts October 29–30, 2003, as one storm (cycle 23’s two are July 2000 and October 2003), while the aurora line counts it as two. We don’t know what “CONSENSUS v1.5” is.

3 · Both readings

Kp 9o or Kp 9−: each reading saves one sentence, and none saves both

GFZ’s Kp runs in thirds: 9− is 8.67 and 9o is 9.00 [3]. NOAA’s G5 is “Kp = 9”; its G4 is “Kp = 8, including a 9-” [10]. The chart says 9o, and the presenter says “KP9” [1]. Both readings are fair, so we give both, for this cycle and for the past.

This cycle’s five, in GFZ’s Kp and Kyoto’s Dst

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Storm	Highest Kp	Daily Ap	Lowest Dst, nT	A: reached 9o?	B: reached 9− or 9o?
Mar 23–24, 2023	8o	73	−163	no	no
May 10–11, 2024	9o	271	−406	yes	yes
Oct 10–11, 2024	9−	116	−333	no	yes
Nov 11–12, 2025	9−	137	−217	no	yes
Jan 19–21, 2026	9−	144	−236	no	yes
Without Kp 9				4 of 5, 80%	1 of 5, 20%

Our analysis: highest three-hour Kp and daily Ap on the storm’s UT days, definitive in GFZ’s record to September 30, 2026 [3]; lowest hourly Dst on those days and the next, provisional [21]. Which five the episode means is our inference from its “four” of October 28 and its March 2023 [1 00:02:15–00:02:29]. These agree with that review’s count of the four at 9− or more.

What each reading does to the two sentences

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	Reading A: Kp 9 means 9o, as on the chart and in NOAA’s G5	Reading B: Kp 9 includes 9−, as GFZ writes it
“four of the five, 80%”	Holds: 4 of 5, 80%. Only May 2024 reached 9o [3]	Fails: 1 of 5, 20%. Only March 2023, at 8o, falls short [3]
“Every super aurora in history”	Fails: April 2000, at 9−, has a photograph from central Florida [2]. At Florida’s magnetic latitude or lower, also at 9−: January 1938 (Patras, 37.3° MLAT) and September 1957 (Mori, 31.9° MLAT) [8 §4] [9 §4]. November 2001 and November 2003 rest on sentences [6]	Holds for Florida by name, before 2023. Fails on magnetic latitude: January 1938 and March 1957, at Kp 8+ [5 Table 1] [9 §3]
So	“Every” is false	“Four of the five” is false

No single reading makes both sentences true. On 9o, April 2000’s photograph and the reports from Florida’s magnetic latitude in 1938 and 1957 break “every”; on 9−, “four of the five” falls to one.

Our analysis

“Four of five without Kp 9”: Misleading

The sum is right on the chart’s own reading: Kp 9o is also NOAA’s G5, with 9− in G4, and only May 2024 reached it [10][3]. What the sentence hides is how near the others came. Three of the four reached 9−, a third of a step short, one of them with a Dst of −333 nT [3][21]; only March 2023, at 8o, is well short. And it isn’t new, on the same outlet’s word. Of cycle 23’s four storms with Florida named, three reached only 9−, 75% without 9o; with November 2004, which reaches Florida only by inference, four of five, 80%, the episode’s own figure [2][6]. Only April 2000 of those has a Florida photograph (section 4). Saying “without KP9” leaves viewers thinking these storms were far weaker than the old ones, and that the past was different.

4 · Was it ever every one?

Before 1932 there is no Kp; after it, the record breaks the rule on 9o, and on 9− by magnetic latitude

“Every super aurora in history was during a KP9 solar storm. Not every KP9 event made them, but that’s what we needed in the recipe.” [1 00:02:52–00:03:01] The second half is fair: since 1932, 23 storms reached 9o and 69 reached 9− or more, and we found Florida named for 3 of the 23 and 9 of the 69 (our count) [3].

Before 1932

GFZ’s Kp record starts on January 1, 1932 [3], so no one measured the Kp of 1859, 1872, 1882, 1903, 1909 or 1921. Those storms did reach low latitudes: aurora overhead in Puerto Rico in 1859 and 1921, and at Jacobabad and Shanghai in 1872 [5 §2]. The chart’s values for them are its own floors, tagged [E] [1]. Calling them Kp 9 is a reasonable guess about size, not a measurement.

NOAA’s scale does name Florida

On NOAA’s G5 row, “aurora has been seen as low as Florida and southern Texas (typically 40° geomagnetic lat.)”; on the G4 row, “as low as Alabama and northern California (typically 45° geomagnetic lat.)” [10]. That is a record of what has been seen, not a rule, but it may be where “the recipe” comes from.

Every storm we found with Florida named, past and present, by one standard

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Storm	Kp	Dst, nT	Kp 9? A / B	Kp after dark in Florida	Arc to the model’s edge	What the Florida record is
Mar 13–14, 1989	9o	−589	yes / yes	9o	Overhead at Jacksonville, on the model	Reports. The First Coast, as a 2025 article retells the Florida Times-Union [22]; a photographer’s memory [13 Mar. 27]. No photograph found
Apr 6–7, 2000	9−	−292	no / yes	9−	9.3° from Rosemary Hill	One photograph, over Rosemary Hill Observatory, central Florida [2]. NASA’s release also says Florida, but its contact writes the site’s forecasts too [23]; NASA’s earlier picture of the day says as far south as North Carolina, which doesn’t conflict [24]
Nov 6, 2001	9−	−292	no / yes	9−	8.4° from Jacksonville; no place named	A sentence. The site’s day pages and gallery summary name Florida [6 Nov. 6–8, 2001]. None of the gallery’s 70 or so entries is from Florida; the southernmost are near San Diego and Abilene, Huntsville and Dalton [25]
Oct 29–30, 2003	9o	−353; −383	yes / yes	9o	4.5° from Jacksonville; no place named	Two reports. The site’s sentence [6 Oct. 30, 2003] and NOAA’s assessment [26 p. 26]; a Florida photographer recalls 2003, no month [13 Mar. 27]. No Florida photograph in the site’s gallery, but one from near Houston, 29.8° N, in the same magnetic band [25]
Nov 20, 2003	9−	−422	no / yes	8o	2.9° from Jacksonville; no place named	A sentence, the next day, and the gallery’s summary [6 Nov. 21–22, 2003]. None of the gallery’s two dozen or so entries for the storm is from Florida; the southernmost in the US are Atlanta and Dalton [25]. The 9− came in Florida’s daylight
Mar 23–24, 2023	8o	−163	no / no	8o	17.4° from Chiefland	One long exposure, 26 minutes, with an alternative its publisher names: Unconfirmed, section 6 [13 Mar. 27]
May 10–11, 2024	9o	−406	yes / yes	9o	4.5° from Tallahassee, 10.2° from Big Pine Key	Several. Big Pine Key, by smartphone [27 May 11, 2024]; Tallahassee, on social media [22]
Oct 10–11, 2024	9−	−333	no / yes	9−	9.2° from Lake Mary, 13.4° from Key West	Several. Key West and Lake Mary, photographs [27 Oct. 11, 2024][28]
Nov 11–12, 2025	9−	−217	no / yes	9−	14.3° from Shired Island, 15.5° from New Port Richey	Several. New Port Richey, by naked eye, the site says; Shired Island, by camera [27 Nov. 13, 2025][29]
Jan 19–21, 2026	9−	−236	no / yes	9−	18.1° from Key West	One photographer’s iPhone photos, the night of January 20, at Kp 7+ if the photo’s time is local [27 Gallery item 230497]. The site’s list of states photographed names Florida [27 Jan. 21, 2026]; Florida’s press said the first night, with the 9−, did not reach the state [30]

Our analysis: Kp from GFZ [3]; Dst from Kyoto [21]. We put the same three questions to every record. What is it: several records, one photograph, or reports with no Florida photograph in the site’s own galleries [25]? Was the storm strong after dark in Florida: the highest Kp with the Sun 6° or more down at Orlando? And how far is the place from the edge of overhead aurora, on Love and colleagues’ model at the storm’s lowest Dst [5 §3], from Jacksonville where no place is named? Red aurora at 300–400 km clears the horizon out to 17–20°, so the arcs of 2000–2003 are well inside that, and those of March 2023 and January 2026 are at the limit. Sightings are not a census: this lists what we found, mostly in one website’s archive, which starts around 2000 [2]. Ten storms: three reached 9o; six more reached 9−; one, March 2023, reached 8o. November 2004 is not listed: Spaceweather.com says every US state but Hawaii saw it, but we found Florida named only by that inference [2].

The wider record: 42 storms since 1932, with Kp, Dst and what was reported at low latitude

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Storm (UT days)	Highest Kp	Daily Ap	Lowest Dst, nT	Kp 9? A / B	Florida named?	Where it was reported
Jan 21–22, 1938	8+	128	Dxt −340; Dcx −328	no / no	no	Overhead at Los Angeles (40.9°), with a glow overhead at Escondido (40.1°) [5 Table 1]; reported overhead at Noto, Sakhalin (39.2° MLAT), and seen from Morioka (29.5° MLAT), up to about 20° elevation [8 §4]; Noto only nearly overhead, on Love and colleagues’ reading [5 §2]
Jan 25–26, 1938	9−	107	Dxt −350; Dcx −336	no / yes	no	Gibraltar, Sicily, Greece; up to 45° elevation at Patras (37.3° MLAT); a vessel off South Africa (31.8° S, −29.9° MLAT) [8 §3–4]
Apr 16, 1938	9o	136	Dxt −255	yes / yes	no	Overhead at Long Beach, California (40.5°) [5 Table 1]
Mar 24–25, 1940	9o	187	Dst* −389	yes / yes	no	Overhead at Case Observatory, Ohio (52.5°) [5 Table 1]
Mar 1, 1941	9o	207	Dst* ≤ −464	yes / yes	no	Overhead at Kalgoorlie, Australia (30.7° S, 41.3°) [5 Table 1]; oval’s edge about 38.5° ILAT [9 §7]
Jul 4–5, 1941	9o	222	Dxt −451	yes / yes	no	Overhead at Gaviota, California (40.9°) [5 Table 1]
Sep 18–19, 1941	9o	232	Dxt −415	yes / yes	no	Overhead at Riverina, Australia (43.9°) [5 Table 1]; New Mexico [31]
Mar 28, 1946	9−	213	Dst* ≤ −512	no / yes	no	Overhead at Broken Hill, Australia (32.0° S, 41.5°) [5 Table 1]
Mar 1–2, 1957	8+	132	−255	no / no	no	Rays to Mochita (32.3° MLAT); red glow to Kuji (30.1° MLAT), part perhaps a stable auroral red arc; oval’s edge 40.6° ILAT, or 35.9° if all of Kuji’s glow was aurora [9 §3]
Sep 13, 1957	9−	160	−427	no / yes	no	Seen from Mori (31.9° MLAT), oval’s edge 38.3° ILAT [9 §4]; overhead at Fresno (43.3°) [5 Table 1]
Feb 10–11, 1958	9o	199	−426	yes / yes	no	Mexico City (29.3° MLAT); Ogori (23.3° MLAT); rays at Niigata (27.7° MLAT); oval’s edge 33.3° ILAT [9 §5]
Jul 15, 1959	9o	236	−429	yes / yes	no	Seen at 27.4° MLAT in China, oval’s edge 35.4° ILAT [32 Abstract]; overhead in Heilungkiang (36.3°) [5 Table 1]
Nov 13, 1960	9o	280	−339	yes / yes	no	Overhead at Columbus, Indiana (50.0°) [5 Table 1]
May 25–26, 1967	9o	146	−387	yes / yes	no	Overhead at Greenville (43.8°): Mississippi, by our reading of the table’s “Alabama” [5 Table 1]
Aug 4–5, 1972	9o	182	−125	yes / yes	no	Satellite edge 53.1°: Kp 9o with Dst only −125 nT [5 Table 2]
Apr 12–13, 1981	8+	121	−311	no / no	lead	Every storm of 1981 stops at Kp 8+. A 2025 article puts aurora in South Florida in 1981, with no date or primary source; see section 12 [22]
Jul 13–14, 1982	9o	153	−325	yes / yes	no	No report found by us
Feb 8–9, 1986	9o	202	−307	yes / yes	no	Satellite edge 40–44° [5 Table 2]
Mar 13–14, 1989	9o	246	−589	yes / yes	yes	Overhead at Kosciusko, Mississippi (43.1°) [5 Table 1]; visible to 29° MLAT [33 Table 1]. Florida: the First Coast, as retold in 2025 [22]; a photographer recalls it in Florida [13 Mar. 27]
Nov 8–9, 1991	9−	119	−354	no / yes	no	Overhead at Mali Lošinj, Croatia (44.2°) [5 Table 1]
Apr 6–7, 2000	9−	82	−292	no / yes	yes	One Florida photograph found, over Rosemary Hill Observatory, central Florida [2]; NASA’s release also says Florida, but its contact writes the site’s forecasts too [23]; NASA’s earlier picture of the day says as far south as North Carolina, which doesn’t conflict [24]
Mar 31, 2001	9−	192	−387	no / yes	no	Reached Texas, southern California and Mexico [6 Apr. 1, 2001]; overhead at Payson, Arizona (41.8°) [5 Table 1]
Oct 21–22, 2001	8−	96	−187	no / no	no	Sensitive all-sky record in northern Japan, at about Florida’s magnetic latitude [34]
Nov 6, 2001	9−	142	−292	no / yes	yes	Reached Florida, Texas and California, the site says [6 Nov. 6–8, 2001]; no Florida photograph among its gallery’s 70 or so entries [25]
Nov 24, 2001	8+	104	−221	no / no	no	Reached Arkansas and Texas [6 Nov. 25–26, 2001]
Oct 29–30, 2003	9o	204	−353; −383	yes / yes	yes	Reached Florida, New Mexico, Arizona and Texas, the site says [6 Oct. 30, 2003]; NOAA: sightings from California to Houston to Florida [26 p. 26]; no Florida photograph in the site’s gallery, one from near Houston, 29.8° N [25]. Dst recovered to −97 nT between its two dips [21]
Nov 20, 2003	9−	150	−422	no / yes	yes	Reached Florida and Greece, the site’s next-day sentence [6 Nov. 21–22, 2003]; no Florida photograph among its gallery’s two dozen or so entries [25]; overhead at Strathalbyn, Australia (43.7°) [5 Table 1]
Nov 7–10, 2004	9−	161	−374	no / yes	inferred	Every US state except Hawaii [2]; Alabama and California [6 Nov. 8–9, 2004]. Florida only by inference
May 15, 2005	8+	87	−247	no / no	no	California and Arizona [6 May 16, 2005]; overhead at Mount Arapiles, Australia (44.9°) [5 Table 1]
Sep 7–8, 2017	8+	106	−148	no / no	no	Reached Arkansas [27 Sept. 9, 2017]
Feb 26–27, 2023	7−	91	−132	no / no	no	All-sky imager at Rikubetsu (34.7° MLAT) [35 Abstract]
Mar 23–24, 2023	8o	73	−163	no / no	yes	One 26-minute exposure, Chiefland (29.4° N): a red glow the site judged most likely aurora [13 Mar. 27]. New Mexico (32.8° N) on video [13 Mar. 26]
Apr 23–24, 2023	8+	72	−213	no / no	no	Terlingua, Texas (29.5° N), camera; southern California; Spain’s coast (37° N) [27 Apr. 24, 2023]; Hanle, India, all-sky camera, though the authors find the aurora itself stayed far to the north [36 Abstract]
Nov 5, 2023	7+	61	−163	no / no	no	Texas (33.6° N), Arizona; red stable auroral arcs [27 Nov. 6–7, 2023]
May 10–11, 2024	9o	271	−406	yes / yes	yes	Big Pine Key (24.7° N), by smartphone; Puerto Rico (18.1° N); Mazatlán (23.2° N) [27 May 11, 2024]; naked eye to −23.2° MLAT, oval’s edge 29.8–35.5° ILAT [37 p. 35]
Aug 12, 2024	8o	127	−188	no / no	no	Reached Texas, Mississippi and Arizona [27 Aug. 13, 2024]
Oct 10–11, 2024	9−	116	−333	no / yes	yes	Key West (24.7° N), photo; Mazatlán; Toa Baja, Puerto Rico (18.4° N); a ship south of Cuba (about 21° N) [27 Oct. 11–12, 2024]; Lake Mary [28]
Jan 1, 2025	8o	81	−212	no / no	no	Mexicali in Mexico, Colorado and Arizona [27 Jan. 2–3, 2025]; the site’s next-day page files the Mexicali photo under SAR images
Jun 1, 2025	8−	98	−119	no / no	no	Tres Piedras, New Mexico (36.6° N); a doubtful photo from Louisiana [27 June 2, 2025]
Nov 11–12, 2025	9−	137	−217	no / yes	yes	New Port Richey (28° N), Tucson (32° N), Usulután, El Salvador (13° N), all by naked eye, the site says [27 Nov. 13, 2025]; Shired Island, Florida, camera [29]; Tucson again [38 Abstract]
Jan 19–21, 2026	9−	144	−236	no / yes	yes	Alabama, Georgia, New Mexico, Arizona and California [27 Jan. 20–21, 2026]; Florida’s press: the first night didn’t reach the state [30]; near Key West, one photographer’s iPhone 15 photos, night of January 20, a red glow [27 Gallery item 230497]
Mar 20–22, 2026	7o	78	−105	no / no	no	Arizona [27 Mar. 23, 2026]

Our analysis, also in low-latitude-aurora.csv, which keeps October 29 and 30, 2003, as two rows. Degrees are geomagnetic as each source gives them, MLAT and ILAT as the source writes them; a place’s degrees without a label are Love and colleagues’ geomagnetic latitudes. Sightings are not a census: reporting differs by era, and a blank means we found nothing, not that nothing was seen. Dst before 1957 is the literature’s estimate: Dxt from the University of Oulu and Dst* from Hayakawa and colleagues, through Love and colleagues’ table [5 Table 1], and Dcx [8 Abstract]. Kyoto’s Dst is for scientific, non-commercial use [21]. Love’s table says Greenville, Alabama, for May 1967, but its latitude, 43.79°, matches Greenville, Mississippi (33.4° N), and the paper it cites is that town’s, so we read it as Mississippi (our note).

At 9−, by magnetic latitude

On January 25–26, 1938, at Kp 9−, aurora was reported up to 45° above the horizon at Patras, Greece, 37.3° MLAT, inside Florida’s band, in one newspaper [8 §4][3]. On September 13, 1957, at Kp 9−, it was seen up to 38° above the horizon at Mori, Japan, 31.9° MLAT, below the band, in one report of the country’s meteorological agency, and not as a stable red arc, by its colours [9 §4][3].

Below 9−, overhead

On January 22, 1938, at Kp 8+, discrete aurora stood overhead at Los Angeles, 40.9° geomagnetic, with a glow overhead at Escondido, 40.1° [5 Table 1][3]. Florida’s band then ran about 35.6–41.3° (our analysis). Aurora was seen from Morioka in Japan at 29.5° [8 §4].

Below 9−, in Japan

On March 2, 1957, at Kp 8+, Japanese observers recorded rays down to Mochita, 32.3° MLAT, and a red glow to Kuji, 30.1°, some of it perhaps a stable auroral red arc [9 §3][3]. Dst was −255 nT [21].

Far below, by instrument or chance

Sensitive cameras in northern Japan, about Florida’s magnetic latitude, logged 20 low-latitude events in 1999–2004 [39 Abstract], one on October 21, 2001, at Kp 8− [34][3]. Silverman tabulates 54 “sporadic” low-latitude auroras in quiet to moderate activity, all but one in the United States, 1880–1940 [40 Abstract].

Our analysis

“Every super aurora was Kp 9”: False

Big storms do drive aurora low, and “the recipe” has that much right. But the sentence says every one, in history. Before 1932 it can’t be measured. On the chart’s own 9o, April 2000 contradicts it, in a storm which, on our mapping, the chart leaves out: one photograph from central Florida, at 9−, after dark, with the model’s edge 9° away [2][3]. So, by magnetic latitude, do Patras in January 1938 and Mori in September 1957, both 9−, on one report each [8 §4] [9 §4]. Those are the grounds for False, and each is thin; together they are enough for “every”. We don’t rest it on November 2001 and November 2003, also 9−, which are reported, with no Florida photograph in the site’s own galleries [6] [25]; November 2003’s 9− came in Florida’s daylight. Why April 2000 counts while March 2023, also one photograph, stays Unconfirmed: at −292 nT the model’s edge is 9° from the observatory, well inside any horizon arc, and no alternative is on the record; at −163 nT it is 17° from Chiefland, at the limit, and the photograph comes with a named alternative and a question mark. If 9− counts, every storm we found with Florida named before 2023 passes; but “Florida equivalent” then needs a definition, and on magnetic latitude January 1938 and March 1957, both Kp 8+, fail it [5 Table 1][9 §3]. At most it is true of the points the chart picked, and the chart doesn’t say how it picked them [1]. Storm size and reach do go together, but through Dst more than Kp: in August 1972 Kp reached 9o at a Dst of only −125 nT, with the satellite edge at 53° [5 Table 2][21].

5 · Like for like

Counted by Florida’s name, cycle 23 comes close, though this cycle got there faster and from fewer big storms

“This cycle, however, we’ve not only blown away the super auroral record” [1 00:03:03–00:03:06]. Part of the rise on the chart comes from counting recent storms by any Florida report and older ones by something narrower. Part of it survives a fair count. No one has a like-for-like list.

The chart against what we found, by cycle

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Cycle	Chart	What we found (not a census)
17	1	Aurora overhead inside Florida’s magnetic band: January 1938 (8+), April 1938, March 1941 and July 1941 (9o) [5 Table 1]. Florida by name: none found
18	0	March 1946 (9−), overhead at Broken Hill, at the band’s edge [5 Table 1]
19	1	Seen below the band: March 1957 (8+), September 1957 (9−), February 1958 and July 1959 (9o) [9 §3–5] [32 Abstract]
20	0	May 1967 (9o), overhead in Mississippi [5 Table 1]; visible from Florida only by inference
21	1 ○	Which storm is unknown; see the 1981 lead in section 12
22	1	March 1989 (9o), Florida, on a newspaper’s retelling and a photographer’s memory [22] [13 Mar. 27]
23	2	Florida by name: April 2000 (9−, a photograph), October 2003 (9o, two reports), November 2001 and November 2003 (9−, sentences) [2][6]. By inference: November 2004 (9−). In the band: a photograph from near Houston, October 2003 [25]. By instrument: 20 events in Japan [39 Abstract]
24	0	Arkansas, September 2017 (8+) [27 Sept. 9, 2017]; no Florida found
25	5 ○	Florida by name: five, all with photographs, two of them from one photographer each (section 6). In the band: Terlingua, Texas, April 2023 (8+) [27 Apr. 24, 2023]

Chart values as read [1]. Spaceweather.com’s summary for 2001 says aurora reached Texas, Florida, Arizona and even Mexico on many dates that year [2]; we counted only storms where Florida is named for the storm. Before about 2000 no comparable archive exists, so the earlier rows are thin in a different way.

Cycle 23 against cycle 25, on the same measures

Measure	Cycle 23, all 12.3 years	Cycle 23, its first 6.9 years	Cycle 25, 6.9 years so far
Storms with Florida named	4	2	5
… with a Florida photograph we could find	1	1	5
Storms at Kp 9− or more	10	5	4
… with Florida named	4	2	4
Storms at Dst −250 nT or below	8	5	2
… with Florida named	4	2	2

Our analysis: storms from GFZ’s Kp and Kyoto’s Dst [3][21]; Florida’s names and photographs from the table in section 4. The same point in cycle 23 is its first 6.9 years, to July 2003.

Storms per solar cycle, beside the episode’s aurora count

Our analysis

Storms reaching Kp 9o
Storms reaching Kp 9− only
Storms with Dst at or below −250 nT

Cycle 17 10.4 years

Kp9 5 at 9o

Dstno Dst yet

On the chart: 1

Cycle 18 10.2 years

Kp12 2 at 9o

Dstno Dst yet

On the chart: 0

Cycle 19 10.5 years

Kp18 7 at 9o

Dst14 in 7.7 yr

On the chart: 1

Cycle 20 11.4 years

Kp6 3 at 9o

Dst2

On the chart: 0

Cycle 21 10.5 years

Kp3 2 at 9o

Dst4

On the chart: 1 ○

Cycle 22 9.9 years

Kp7 1 at 9o

Dst9

On the chart: 1

Cycle 23 12.3 years

Kp10 2 at 9o

Dst8

On the chart: 2

Cycle 24 11.0 years

Kp0 0 at 9o

Dst0

On the chart: 0

Cycle 25 6.9 years, still running

Kp4 1 at 9o

Dst2

On the chart: 5 ○

Our analysis, from GFZ’s Kp, CC BY 4.0 [3], and WDC Kyoto’s hourly Dst, from January 1957 (final to 2020, provisional to September 2026) [21]. Kyoto asks to be contacted before its real-time values are published; none is published here, and only the script’s --all-months test reads a month of them. Kyoto’s index is for scientific, non-commercial use; we acknowledge the observatories that supply its data and the WDC for Geomagnetism, Kyoto, and cite the data DOI 10.17593/14515-74000. Runs of days are merged for Kp, and Dst dips within two days count once; −250 nT is the usual line for a superstorm [41]. Cycle 19’s Dst starts partway through it, and cycle 25 is still running, at 6.9 years. The right-hand number is the chart’s, as read [1]; ○ is its hollow mark, which it says means qualified or borderline.

The numbers behind the chart, by cycle

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Cycle	Starts	Years	Kp ≥ 8−	Kp ≥ 8+	Kp ≥ 9−	Kp 9o	Kp ≥ 9− a year	Years of Dst	Dst ≤ −250	Dst ≤ −200	On the chart
17	1933-09	10.4	37	15	9	5	0.86				1
18	1944-02	10.2	39	21	12	2	1.18				0
19	1954-04	10.5	59	31	18	7	1.71	7.7	14	20	1
20	1964-10	11.4	31	12	6	3	0.53	11.4	2	6	0
21	1976-03	10.5	34	12	3	2	0.29	10.5	4	15	1 ○
22	1986-09	9.9	31	12	7	1	0.71	9.9	9	12	1
23	1996-08	12.3	34	19	10	2	0.81	12.3	8	15	2
24	2008-12	11.0	7	2	0	0	0.00	11.0	0	1	0
25	2019-12	6.9	13	6	4	1	0.58	6.9	2	6	5 ○

Our analysis, also in storms-by-cycle.csv [3][21]. Reading every month of Kyoto’s record, not only the stormy ones, added one storm at −200 nT, on March 5, 1981, and none at −250 nT.

What reporting can explain

In May 2024, Nanjo and Shiokawa write, commercial digital cameras filled social media with high-resolution aurora images [11 Abstract], and Kataoka and colleagues built their analysis of October 2024 on citizen photographs [42 Abstract]. Hayakawa and colleagues note that citizen-science portals can greatly raise the number of auroral records [37 p. 42]. Sensitive instruments had already shown invisible aurora to be common in storms [39 Abstract]. Of this cycle’s five, March 2023 rests on a 26-minute exposure [13 Mar. 27], January 2026 on one photographer’s iPhone photos [27 Gallery item 230497], and May 2024’s Florida Keys report on a smartphone [27 May 11, 2024]. In November 2001 the gallery for a severe storm held about 70 photographs, none from Florida, though the site said sky watchers there reported it [25], so a missing photograph then means less than it would now. A local forecaster’s blog in November 2025 counted three times Florida had seen aurora since May 2024 [43]: public sightings, of a kind cycle 23’s records mostly aren’t.

What it can’t explain

Reporting can’t put aurora where it isn’t. May 2024 and October 2024 were deep storms, at −406 and −333 nT, with aurora seen well beyond Florida [21][37 p. 34]. November 2025’s naked-eye reports from 28° N and 13° N, at −217 nT, go beyond what cameras explain, if they hold [27 Nov. 13, 2025]. Nor can it tell us how many of cycle 23’s other six big storms were seen from Florida and never written down: March 2001 reached Mexico and Texas, and November 2004 every US state but Hawaii, with Florida unnamed [6 Apr. 1, 2001] [2]. And a storm at its peak in Florida’s daylight can’t be seen there, whatever its size (section 4).

Our analysis

“Blew away the aurora record”: Overstated

There is something to it, and the comparison cuts both ways. This cycle has several well-documented displays at very low latitudes, some by naked eye, from Florida to El Salvador [27 Nov. 13, 2025]. Florida is named for all 4 of its storms at Kp 9− or more, against 4 of cycle 23’s 10; for both of its storms at Dst −250 nT or below, against 4 of 8; and for 5 storms in 6.9 years, where cycle 23 had 2 at the same point, from 5 storms at 9− or more and 5 at −250 nT [3][21]. By Florida photographs the gap is wider, 5 against 1. That supports the contrast the episode sees, to that extent. Now weigh it. The numbers are small: if the 8 storms with Florida named fell at random among these 14, all 4 of this cycle’s would be named about 7% of the time (our arithmetic). By name, over the whole of cycle 23, the count is 5 against 4, or 5 against 5 with the presenter’s split [2][6]; that isn’t a record blown away. One of the 5 is Unconfirmed, and cycle 25’s point carries the chart’s own hollow mark [1]. Photographs are the measure cameras change most. And the record it says it blew away is the chart’s own, built with zeros assumed where nothing was documented. Cameras and reporting fit this contrast better than a dipole 1% weaker (section 8), but without one standard for every cycle we can’t separate them, and the chart offers none. Per year, this cycle runs at 0.58 storms at 9− or more against 0.81 in cycle 23 and 1.71 in cycle 19: it isn’t stormier, so any real excess is one of reach, which is what a count like this can’t yet show.

6 · The five

Five storms with a Florida record, two of them resting on one camera

“So that makes five flidian aurora the cycle” [1 00:02:27–00:02:29]. The episode names only March 2023; the other four we take from its “four” of October 28, which our review matched to the storms at Kp 9− or more.

What is documented for Florida

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Storm	Documented in Florida	How
Mar 23–24, 2023	Chiefland, 29.4° N [13 Mar. 27]	One 26-minute exposure, a red glow; photo linked, not hosted
May 10–11, 2024	Big Pine Key, 24.7° N [27 May 11, 2024]; Tallahassee [22]	Smartphone, and a report on social media. Naked-eye aurora elsewhere to −23.2° MLAT [37 p. 34]
Oct 10–11, 2024	Key West, 24.7° N [27 Oct. 11, 2024]; Lake Mary [28]	Photographs. Also Mazatlán and Puerto Rico [27 Oct. 11–12, 2024]
Nov 11–12, 2025	New Port Richey, 28° N [27 Nov. 13, 2025]; Shired Island [29]	By naked eye, the site says, as at Tucson and in El Salvador, 13° N [27 Nov. 13, 2025]; photographed from Tucson [38 Abstract]
Jan 19–21, 2026	Near Key West, 24° N [27 Gallery item 230497]	One photographer’s iPhone 15 photos, the night of January 20: a red glow the photographer calls unmistakable and lasting for hours, 10 seconds’ exposure by the same note, with green in an earlier photo. The site’s list of states photographed names Florida [27 Jan. 21, 2026]. Florida’s press said the first night, with the 9−, did not reach the state [30]

Photographs are other people’s, linked through the sources, not hosted. If the January 2026 photo’s time, 21:27, is local, it was 02:27 UTC on January 21, at Kp 7+ [3]: the storm’s 9− interval had begun 29.5 hours earlier and ended 26.5 hours earlier (our analysis).

March 2023

Spaceweather.com’s first reports of the storm gave New Mexico, 32.8° N, as the southernmost [13 Mar. 24][13 Mar. 26]. On March 27 it ran Bill Williams’s Chiefland exposure under a heading of red auroras over Florida, saying flatly that auroras had descended all the way to the state. The exposure was taken for the Milky Way: 26 minutes, an unusual red glow over a normally dark horizon, with his account that it was the first he had seen in Florida since 2003 and 1989. Only a closing note raises airglow: a leading explanation on another night, it said, but on this one, with red aurora seen a few degrees away, aurora was most likely [13 Mar. 27]. The same site has since said that much of the low-latitude red in other storms was SAR arcs, which aren’t aurora [27 Nov. 6–7, 2023] [27 Jan. 3, 2025]. The Watchers repeats it [20]; the episode shows that article, with the photo’s own question mark [1 00:02:20–00:02:28]. Kp was 8o and Dst −163 nT [3][21].

April 2023

A month later, on a deeper storm, Kp 8+ and Dst −213 nT [3][21], Spaceweather.com’s southernmost report was Terlingua, Texas, 29.5° N, as far south as Chiefland, with aurora pillars on camera [27 Apr. 24, 2023]. Its magnetic latitude, 37.7° apex, is inside Florida’s band (our analysis). An all-sky camera at Hanle, India, 33° N, also caught red light low on the northern horizon that night; the authors find the aurora itself did not reach India, its edge staying beyond 50° N [36 Abstract]. By the bar March 2023 meets, April 2023 is a “Florida equivalent” sixth, and also lacks Kp 9.

Our analysis

“March 2023 hit Florida too”: Unconfirmed

To be fair to the episode: the record exists, it shows the record on screen, Spaceweather.com called it aurora and judged that likeliest, and the geometry allows it. Love and colleagues’ model puts the overhead edge at about 56° for a −163 nT storm, 17° of arc north of Chiefland (15–20° across its 68% range) [5 §3]; the model was set on storms past 200 nT, and their satellite edges at 144–175 nT make it 12–20° [5 Table 2]. Red aurora at 300–400 km clears the horizon out to 17–20°. So a low red glow is what one would expect, with no change in the field. A SAR arc fits the same geometry, so geometry can’t decide it. It is one long exposure, with an alternative its publisher names, a question mark on the photo as the episode shows it, and no second record we could find. It may well be aurora; it has not been confirmed.

Our analysis

“Five Floridian auroras”: Partly true

Five is the number of this cycle’s storms with Florida named, so it holds for Florida by name. It doesn’t hold as “Florida equivalent” [1 00:02:06]: April 2023 reaches the same latitude at Terlingua, geographic or magnetic [27 Apr. 24, 2023]. And the five are unequal: three have several reports, one by naked eye; March 2023, Unconfirmed above, and January 2026 rest on one photographer each, as the chart’s hollow mark may allow [1]. Near Key West in January 2026 lies as far from the model’s edge, 18°, as Chiefland in March 2023.

Our analysis

“Anomaly kickstarted pole shift”: Misread

“That was the one that Sergey Semenenko said coincided with the major magnetic anomaly that kickstarted this latest acceleration of the pole shift.” [1 00:02:18–00:02:27] As in extra x3, the paper appears to be Simonenko’s 2024 article. It calls March 23, 2023, the strongest magnetic anomaly in six years [44 Abstract], citing as its reference 5 NOAA’s notice of G3 storming that day [45]. So the “anomaly” is the storm, not something the storm coincided with: a brief disturbance from a solar eruption, not a change in the core field. A search of the full text finds no “acceler-”, and it dates the possible start of a reversal to March 2007, not 2023 [44 Abstract].

Our analysis

The split in cycle 23: Context

“we have to split the one two cycles ago into two separate events in cycle 23.” [1 00:02:31–00:02:37] We take this as October 29–30, 2003: Kp reached 9o on both days [3], and Kyoto’s Dst fell to −353 nT at 01 UT on the 30th, recovered to −97 nT by 18 UT, and fell again to −383 nT at 23 UT [21]. So the “brief break” is real, and he says himself they might count as one [1 00:02:37–00:02:44]. The trouble is what the split leaves out: November 20, 2003, Dst −422 nT, Kp 9−, also with Florida named [6 Nov. 21–22, 2003].

7 · Florida’s latitude

The pole’s motion has carried Florida away from the auroral zone, about 2° since 1960

“Many of you probably remember Florida equivalent latitude in either the north or south. Super rare.” [1 00:02:04–00:02:11] The episode doesn’t say equivalent how. Geography doesn’t set where aurora falls; magnetic latitude does, and Florida’s has changed.

Florida’s magnetic latitude, 1900–2025

Our analysis

Centred-dipole latitude
Apex latitude, Orlando

Our analysis from IGRF-14, every five years, degrees of magnetic latitude [4]. Centred-dipole latitude measures from the dipole’s axis; apex latitude traces the full model’s field line from the place to its top, and so includes the non-dipole field. The numbers are in florida-magnetic-latitude.csv.

Florida’s magnetic latitude at six dates: centred dipole / apex, degrees

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Place	1859	1921	1960	1989	2003	2025
Key West	35.3 / 34.1	35.5 / 36.5	35.6 / 36.9	35.1 / 36.3	34.5 / 35.7	33.5 / 34.2
Miami	36.6 / 35.8	36.8 / 38.0	36.9 / 38.4	36.4 / 37.5	35.8 / 36.9	34.7 / 35.2
Orlando	39.3 / 38.8	39.5 / 40.8	39.6 / 41.1	39.1 / 40.2	38.5 / 39.6	37.5 / 38.0
Chiefland	40.1 / 39.6	40.3 / 41.6	40.4 / 41.9	39.9 / 41.1	39.4 / 40.5	38.4 / 39.0
Pensacola	40.8 / 39.9	41.0 / 41.9	41.1 / 42.2	40.6 / 41.7	40.1 / 41.3	39.1 / 40.0

Our analysis from IGRF-14 from 1900 [4], and for September 1859 from COV-OBS.x2, truncated at degree 14 [46], so that date’s apex values are less certain. Dates are the storms’: September 1859, May 1921, 1960, March 1989, October 2003 and 2025. Our centred-dipole values reproduce Love and colleagues’ geomagnetic latitudes within about 0.1° at six of their sites [5 Table 1].

Since 1960

Our analysis

−2°

−2.0 to −2.1° in centred-dipole latitude, −2.2 to −3.2° in apex latitude, at Key West, Orlando and Pensacola [4].

Since October 2003

Our analysis

−1 to −1.6°

−1.0° in centred-dipole latitude, −1.2 to −1.6° in apex latitude: farther from the northern auroral zone [4].

Rikubetsu, Japan, since 1960

Our analysis

+2.2°

33.4° to 35.6°, centred dipole, by 2023: Asia’s sites have moved the other way [4]. Maffei and colleagues find the zones drifting from North America toward Siberia [47 §3.1].

Our analysis

“Florida equivalent latitude”: Context

In 2025 Florida spans about 33.5–39.3° in centred-dipole latitude and 34.2–40.0° in apex latitude, with Key West at the low end [4]. On a magnetic reading a band of 36–39.5°, central and north Florida, also runs through Hokkaido (about 44–47° N), southern Spain (about 34–37° N) and, in the south, New South Wales (about 30–33° S). On a geographic reading, 24.5–31° N, it doesn’t. Each reading gives a different count, and the episode doesn’t say which it uses [1]. Either way a comparison across cycles has to allow for drift: a fixed place in Florida now needs the oval about 2° farther south than in 1960. That works against modern Florida sightings, so the pole’s motion can’t produce the rise on the chart. It is one more reason to compare by magnetic latitude at the date, as Love and Hayakawa do; the chart doesn’t say it does.

8 · What moves the oval

Storm strength moves the oval’s edge tens of times farther than the field’s decline

“That’s how fast Earth’s magnetic pole shift is advancing.” [1 00:03:10–00:03:14] For aurora to measure that, a few percent of field would have to move the oval a long way. It doesn’t.

The dipole, 2003 to 2024

Our analysis

−1.04%

7.773 to 7.692 × 10²² A m², November 2003 to May 2024: −5.05% a century. Over 2015–2025, −4.48% [4], about the 5% a century on our page on the field’s decline.

What that moves the edge

Our analysis

0–0.3°

For an edge at 45–55°, by the three scalings in Glassmeier and colleagues, written for the polar cap’s boundary and applied here to the oval’s edge [7 p. 3669]. At May 2024’s 30–36° they give up to about 0.5°.

−163 to −406 nT

Our analysis

5–12°

From this cycle’s weakest of the five to its strongest: 4.9° by Schulz’s rule of 4° ± 1° of diameter per −100 nT [12 Abstract], 12.0° by Love and colleagues’ model [5 §3].

How far each thing moves the oval’s edge

Our analysis

A weaker dipole, toward the equator
Storm strength, toward the equator
Florida’s own drift, away from the oval

Dipole −1.04%, November 2003 to May 2024

0–0.3°

Dipole −9.45%, September 1859 to 2025

0–3.0°

Florida’s own drift, November 2003 to May 2024

1.0–1.6°

−163 to −406 nT, Schulz’s rule

4.9°

−163 to −406 nT, Love and colleagues’ model

12.0°

Quiet times to May 2024, as reconstructed

about 19–35°

Degrees of latitude. A paler bar is the range of the estimates

Our analysis. Dipole rows: the range across Glassmeier and colleagues’ three scalings at an edge of 45°, the largest of the three edges we ran; the Vogt and Glassmeier scaling gives zero [7 p. 3669], with the dipole from IGRF-14 and COV-OBS.x2 [4][46]. Florida: centred-dipole to apex change at Key West, Orlando and Pensacola [4]. Storm rows: Schulz’s rule, as half the change in diameter [12 Abstract]; Love and colleagues’ fit, ln L = 3.9825 − 0.5478 ln D [5 §3]; and the edge from its usual 55–65° to 30–36° in May 2024, as on our check of that storm [48 p. 567][37 p. 35]. Different measures of the edge, so read them for size only.

What sets the edge

In 423 storms, the auroral belt’s edge at midnight moved equatorward with the ring current, reaching its lowest latitude about an hour before Dst’s peak [48 pp. 566–567]. Three decades of magnetometer data show the same [49 Abstract]. Love and colleagues fit the lowest latitude of discrete aurora overhead against storm size from 54 storms, 1859–2005 [5 §2]. On their model, overhead aurora in Florida would take about −530 nT at Pensacola, −576 nT at Orlando and −690 nT at Key West (our calculation); this cycle’s deepest is −406 nT [21].

Seen from Florida, not over it

Aurora at height h clears the horizon out to 15.8° of arc at 250 km, 19.8° at 400 km and 24.8° at 650 km (our calculation, no refraction). Red aurora can sit very high: about 950 km in October 2024 [42 Abstract]. At Hanle in April 2023 the authors put the edge near 52° N in the midnight sector, with emission at 600–650 km, seen from 33° N [36 Abstract]. So a sighting at Florida’s latitude doesn’t put the oval over Florida. Shiokawa and colleagues place Japan’s red low-latitude auroras probably at geomagnetic latitudes above about 40–50° [39 Abstract].

Our analysis

“Aurora shows pole shift’s speed”: False

The argument needs aurora’s reach to track the field. By published scalings, the dipole’s 1.04% fall from November 2003 to May 2024 moves an edge at 45–55° by 0.07–0.30°, or not at all on one of the three, the one suggested for strong southward interplanetary field, which is the storm case [7 p. 3669]. Love and colleagues, citing Ebihara and Tanaka, put the oval’s shift for a dipole 33% weaker at about 2°, which they call small; scaled, that is about 0.05° (our arithmetic) [5 §7]. The difference between this cycle’s storms moves it 5–12°, some 15 to 170 times as far [12 Abstract][5 §3]. And over those two decades Florida’s magnetic latitude fell 1.0–1.6° (section 7), so its distance from the oval grew by about 0.7–1.6°. The inference runs the wrong way for North America. As for “Rapid Decay”: the decline is slow for people and, over the long run, not speeding up, about 5% a century with a pace that swings from decade to decade [4]. By the core’s own standards it is fast, about ten times simple diffusion, and Nilsson and colleagues call it rapid [50 Introduction] [51 Abstract], as our guide and our page on the field’s decline set out. What a count of auroras can’t do is measure it. This agrees with stop 8, “More auroras from less solar input?”, rated False, and with our check of the May 2024 aurora. None of the sources we read says low-latitude aurora measures a pole shift.

Our analysis

The fair side

The dipole is weakening, and a weaker dipole may ease low-latitude aurora, slightly: Hayakawa and colleagues note that 1938’s reach may have needed a slightly stronger driver than modern statistics suggest [8 p. 12]. May 2024’s reconstructed edge, 29.8–35.5° ILAT, lies below Love and colleagues’ 68% range for its size, though its authors call it what the correlation would lead one to expect [37 p. 31] [37 p. 35]. November 2025’s naked-eye report from 13° N at −217 nT looks far for its Dst, and we read no study of it [27 Nov. 13, 2025]. The episode counts “in either the north or south” [1 00:02:09], and Maffei and colleagues report Zossi and colleagues’ finding that the southern auroral zone has been growing in area by about 5% a decade while the northern shrinks at that rate [47 §1]; that hasn’t been tested against the sightings. A catalogue with one standard, allowing for cameras, could yet show aurora reaching lower for a given storm. Even then the scalings above cap how much of that the field could explain.

9 · The Sun

Eight small flares, a forecast storm that came in one step stronger, and a wind easing off

The episode opens on “the last 24 hours on our star where it was quiet up there” [1 00:00:27–00:00:31]. It adds that NOAA forecast the storm, that “Solar wind peaked during the G2 level event” [1 00:00:48–00:00:51] and that the stream is “already waning back to normal here this morning” [1 00:00:55–00:00:58]. We checked the 24 hours before the upload, to 12:09 UTC on November 1.

Flares, 24 hours before the upload

Our analysis

In SWPC’s edited events, all class B, the largest B5.9 at 19:55 UTC on October 31 [14]. The last C-class flare before the upload was on October 28; a C1.1 came 27 minutes after it [52].

Highest three-hour Kp

6, G2

“The greatest observed 3 hr Kp over the past 24 hours was 6 (NOAA Scale G2).” [53] GFZ’s preliminary value for 18–21 UT on October 31 is 6− (5.667), with a daily Ap of 22 [3].

Solar wind’s peak

615 km/s

Near 22:00 UTC on October 31, up from about 430 km/s, with the field reaching 13 nT and Bz −11 nT [16].

In the forecasters’ words

From the Space Weather Prediction Center; times are UTC. “CH HSS” is a coronal-hole high-speed stream.

“G1 (Minor) geomagnetic storms are likely on 31 Oct primarily due to recurrent, positive polarity coronal hole high speed stream effects.”
SWPC’s watch, October 28, 16:38 UTC [15]

“Solar activity continued at very low levels.” … “Solar activity is expected to be at very low levels with a chance for isolated C-class flares through 03 Nov.”
SWPC, November 1, 0030 UTC, the last before the episode [16]

“Enhanced solar wind conditions are likely to continue through 02 Nov due to positive polarity CH HSS influences. A return to mostly nominal conditions is expected over 03 Nov.”
SWPC, November 1, 0030 UTC [16]

The eight X-ray events of October 31, 12:09, to November 1, 12:09 UTC

Peak, UTC	Class	Region	Satellite
Oct 31, 15:20	B3.6	none given	GOES-18
Oct 31, 15:42	B3.8	4564	GOES-18
Oct 31, 19:13	B4.1	none given	GOES-18
Oct 31, 19:55	B5.9	none given	GOES-18
Oct 31, 20:37	B3.6	none given	GOES-18
Oct 31, 20:51	B4.0	none given	GOES-18
Oct 31, 22:29	B3.8	none given	GOES-19
Oct 31, 23:08	B4.4	none given	GOES-19

From the Center’s edited events for October 31 and November 1, as updated by 15:52 UTC on November 1 [14]. GOES-18’s flare list holds six of them; the two latest were seen by GOES-19 [52]. The largest flare of the UT day, B6.3 at 09:14 UTC on October 31, came before the window.

“On the left behind that dark coronal hole”

“Perhaps we’ll get a bit of explosive activity this week” [1 00:00:36–00:00:38]. The episode’s images at this point show bright loops at the east limb, the left, and a dark coronal hole low on the left [1]. SWPC’s map of 02:30 UTC on November 1 shows coronal hole CH 09 in the south-east, Regions 4564 and 4565 in the north-east, and positive-polarity CH 07 at the west limb [54]; SIDC puts the stream’s probable source, a positive-polarity hole, on the Sun’s western side [55]. Old Region 4551 was due back at S16 [56]. SWPC’s chance of a C-class flare was 25%, of M or X 1% each [54]. It is a hedged look ahead, and the forecasters expected little.

Sunspots and the stream

Two spotted regions were on the disk at the end of October 31: 4564, three spots at N04E44, and 4565, one spot at N13E63 [56]. SILSO’s estimated sunspot number for November 1 was 34, from 15 stations [57]. SIDC put the wind’s speed at about 500 km/s and the field back near 3 nT, and expected enhanced conditions to ease on November 2, perhaps prolonged by a second coronal hole [55].

Our analysis

“Quiet Sun, G2 from coronal hole”: True

Eight B-class flares and nothing larger fit “quiet” and “no significant solar flares” [14][16]. NOAA did forecast storm conditions from the stream, G1, and the storm reached G2, one step more [15]. The wind’s speed peaked near 22:00 UTC, about an hour after the 18–21 UT interval of G2, and its field at 15:14 UTC, some three hours before it [16][56], so “peaked during” is close, not exact. “Already waning back to normal” is right on the waning: SWPC saw a gradual decline from the peak [16], and by the upload the field had fallen to about 3 nT, normal. But speed in the real-time data was still about 500 km/s, and SWPC expected enhanced conditions through November 2 [17][16]. Those are details in a description that holds.

10 · The weather

A real flood threat, a typhoon past its peak, and a cyclone forecast just south of the last

“the southwest US has been taking a pounding” [1 00:00:58–00:01:00], the presenter says, with “24 hours of onslaught” to come [1 00:01:05]. He also names a second hundred-year flood, a super typhoon, a cyclone for India and a track that misses Japan. We read each against what forecasters had issued by the upload, and say where a product came later.

The Southwest: an atmospheric river

Before the upload, the Weather Prediction Center expected “Impactful flash flooding” in the Great Basin and Four Corners, with 2–4 inches on upslope terrain [58 Short Range, 258 AM EST]. San Diego’s forecasters had widespread light rain, mostly 0.10 inch an hour or less; Phoenix’s, the season’s first atmospheric river; Flagstaff’s, 1–3 inches, locally 4–6, on saturated soils [59]. “Pounding” fits Arizona to Colorado better than California, but the description of a storm crossing from the coast to the plains holds.

“Hundred-year”: rain or river?

A 100-year flood means a 1% chance in any year, not once a century [60]. For the two days to the morning of October 23, the Colorado Climate Center found rain of at least a 10-year level over much of southern Colorado, 100-year in parts of Archuleta County and much of the San Luis Valley, and above 1,000-year in spots [61]. The San Juan at Pagosa Springs read 15.02 ft, 9,230 cfs (USGS, preliminary) at 05:30 MDT on October 23, just after an equipment fault had blanked the gauge for four and a half hours, so the true crest may have been higher [62]. That is the second-highest crest since 1911 by stage [63] and third by flow, after 25,000 cfs in 1911 and 16,000 in 1927 [62].

The forecast at upload

17.0 ft

NWS Grand Junction’s crest for Pagosa Springs early on November 2, in a “PARTICULARY DANGEROUS SITUATION” warning, against 17.8 ft in 1911 [64]. Flood stage is 10.5 ft.

WPC on the rain

100-year

“a very high likelihood of exceeding 100-year ARIs” over the San Juans, with last week’s flash flooding “top of the mind” [58 Excessive Rainfall].

The river, roughly

Our analysis

30–50 years

The return period of 9,230 cfs, the highest reading [62]: 38–49 on our fit, about 30–45 between the Western Water Assessment’s USGS-method figures. The two agree at 2025’s 8,570 cfs, 25–40 on theirs and 30–38 on ours, but part higher up: 1911’s 25,000 cfs is about 200 years on theirs, 1,500–2,600 on ours [65 p. 11]. So the forecast crest, about 13,700 cfs by a rough extrapolation, is about 60–80 years on one and 150–200 on the other, and we can’t yet say.

Our analysis

“Second 100-year flood in 2 weeks”: Partly true

“the second h 100red-year flood to the Colorado Southwest ranges in the last two weeks” [1 00:01:09–00:01:12]. The first event was exceptional, and “hundred-year” fits its rain in parts of the region, but not the river at Pagosa Springs, about a 30–50-year flow on rough figures. The second was a forecast at the upload, and a well-founded one: 100-year rain likely, a major flood forecast [58 Excessive Rainfall][64]. So the sentence blends rain with river and forecast with fact. As the Center notes, the terminology itself can mislead [61]. Whether the second river crest earns the label is a watch item; see section 12.

Our analysis

“The super typhoon”: Partly true

“the super typhoon in the West Pacific” [1 00:01:12–00:01:15]. In-fa reached 130 knots on October 28 at 06–12 UTC and on October 29 at 12 UTC, in the record of JTWC [66]. That is a super typhoon in NWS’s glossary [67] and, by Wikipedia’s account, at JTWC, whose own definition we couldn’t read [68]. By November 1 it was 95 knots at 00 UTC, 90 at 06 and 85 at 12 [66], “RAPIDLY DEGRADING” [69 30W, Warning 37]. JMA, whose winds are 10-minute where JTWC’s are 1-minute, had 80 knots and 955 hPa at 15 UTC, with a lifetime maximum of 100 knots and 940 hPa [70]. A super typhoon three days before, a typhoon at the upload.

Our analysis

“Murasu hits south of Arnab”: True, as a forecast

“another direct hit only slightly south of the big storm that hit last week” [1 00:01:20–00:01:23]. Before the upload, IMD had Cyclonic Storm Murasu crossing south Andhra Pradesh as a severe cyclonic storm, 100–110 km/h gusting 120, between Nellore and Narsapur, late on November 2 to early on November 3 IST [71]. Its forecast point, 15.3° N, 80.4° E, is 187 km from Narsapur, where Arnab crossed as a very severe storm; JTWC’s, 15.5° N, 80.1° E, is 200 km [69 04B, Warning 3]. A weaker storm, as forecast, just down the coast. Still to come.

Our analysis

The Japan track: True, as a forecast

“curling hard and missing the island nation” [1 00:01:27–00:01:29]. JTWC’s track turns In-fa north-east: 25.5° N, 138.8° E at 72 hours, 30.3° N, 142.9° E at 96, and 39.4° N, 156.8° E at 120, extratropical [69 30W, Warning 37]. JMA’s is similar, far east of Japan by 117 hours [70]. That misses the main islands; it does pass near the Ogasawara waters, which are Japan’s. We read these products about three hours after the upload. Still to come.

11 · The links and the promotion

Two papers, checked on their own pages, and a course, quoted

The cards repeat those pages’ verdicts, with the episode’s words about each. The transcript runs straight from one link into the next at 00:01:51, with no sentence break, so the words run together and we don’t guess at what was lost [1 00:01:48–00:01:54].

Early warning for tipping points in the biosphere

What it is: A peer-reviewed review in Reviews of Geophysics, published October 26, 2026, by J. F. Abrams and 13 colleagues, open access under CC BY 4.0 [18]. The episode’s link “Tipping Point Monitoring” [1].
What the authors say: They review what satellites would have to deliver to warn of tipping points in forests, drylands, wetlands and permafrost, add no new data, and say most such approaches “remain in the research phase” [18 p. 23].
What the episode said: “First up in today’s articles is a great concept and minimal execution. Does anyone disagree with the need for monitoring Earth’s tipping points? Of course not. Unless they’re ignoring solar storms and the magnetic pole shift, magnetic changes altogether or anything other than mainstream climate science. They certainly don’t hit the only earth change that really matters right now and that is the ongoing magnetic pole shift” [1 00:01:29–00:01:51]
What our check found: The review does omit the magnetic field and solar storms, as the episode says, but we found nothing showing that they belong there, and “the only earth change that really matters” is contradicted by the record of what is changing nature.

In our check of Abrams et al. (2026): “Great concept, minimal execution” Context; “No one disputes monitoring” Context; “Ignores solar, magnetic changes” Partly true; “Only Earth change that matters” False; “Still in the research phase” True; “Space for time overcomes limits” Unconfirmed. The last two are the paper’s own claims.

A sudden commencement near the South American Magnetic Anomaly

What it is

A preprint by A. R. Piassi and 10 colleagues on ESS Open Archive, posted October 30, 2026, not peer reviewed [19]. The episode’s link “SAA Ground Magnetism” [1].

What the authors do

They compare magnetometer records of the sudden commencement of May 10, 2024, at São Martinho da Serra, near the anomaly, and its magnetic conjugate San Juan, with other conjugate pairs [19].

What the episode said

“system has tipped enough that the magnetic deviations are starting to become enhanced at ground level beneath the South Atlantic anomaly.” [1 00:01:51–00:01:59]

“Deepening of the weak spot continues” [1 00:01:59–00:02:02]

What our check found

The contrast between São Martinho da Serra and San Juan is real and reproduces from public data, but it isn’t new: it shows in every period of public records back to 1999, highest at the start, and a large part of the ratio, by most yardsticks, is San Juan’s low response, at the bottom of 22 comparable stations. The weak spot’s minimum in IGRF-14 did fall, from 22,451 nT in 2013 to 22,038 nT in 2026.

In our check of Piassi et al. (2026): “SAA enhancement just starting” Misread; “Deepening of the weak spot” True; “SMS 1.85 times San Juan” True; “The anomaly may boost response” Partly true; “A reversal only at SMS–SJG” Misleading; “Accumulated response at SMS” Misleading. The last four are the paper’s own claims. The words before “system” belong to the sentence on the first link; the transcript has no break between them [1 00:01:51].

The promotion: The Roadmap

What it is

The presenter’s own online course package, the first link in the description, with courses named Master the Disaster and Phoenix Rising and how-to manuals [1]. Not used as evidence, and not rated here.

What the episode said

“And this is your road map to delivering your bloodline to the next age of Earth.” [1 00:03:14–00:03:18]

“You have told me this package should be about $300 to $500. It’s 25 for observers.” [1 00:03:28–00:03:34]

“I am dragging you across the finish line whether you like it or not.” [1 00:03:34–00:03:38]

What is disclosed

The description also lists promo and referral codes and four live events; the video’s data carry no paid-promotion flag [1].

Not rated.

12 · Limits

Where this check could be wrong

Sightings are not a census
Reports depend on who was out, what they carried and who wrote it down. Our Florida list rests heavily on one website. November 2001 and November 2003 rest on its sentences, and October 2003 on its sentence and NOAA’s, with no Florida photograph in its galleries [6] [25] [26 p. 26]. April 2000 rests on one photograph: NASA’s release also says Florida, but its contact writes the site’s forecasts too, and NASA’s full story and gallery are gone, so other images of that night are unknown to us [23]. NASA’s earlier picture of the day says as far south as North Carolina, which doesn’t conflict [24]. 1989 in Florida rests on a photographer’s memory and a newspaper’s retelling [13 Mar. 27][22]. We made no count of every storm, and the archive starts about 2000, so nothing comparable exists for earlier cycles. Aurorasaurus’s reports we didn’t get.
A lead: South Florida, 1981
A 2025 newspaper article says aurora reached South Florida in 1981, with no date or primary source [22]. We could not confirm it, so no verdict rests on it. Every storm of 1981 stopped at Kp 8+ [3], so if confirmed it would break “every super aurora” on both readings, by Florida’s own name.
Our reading of the chart
The chart’s small text comes from a 1080p frame and its values from a line chart, read by eye; they are whole numbers, so we’re confident of them. Which storms lie behind its points, and what “CONSENSUS v1.5” is, the episode doesn’t say. If it holds an event list, it could change our mapping, though not GFZ’s values [1].
Scalings are first approximations
Glassmeier and colleagues’ relations are for the polar cap’s boundary, which we apply to the oval’s edge; the “0–0.3°” is for edges at 45–55°, and at May 2024’s 30–36° they give up to about 0.5° [7 p. 3669]. Love and colleagues’ model has a wide spread, it describes overhead discrete aurora, not any glow [5 §3], and it was set on storms past 200 nT [5 §6]; their satellite edges for storms of 144–175 nT run 50.5–58.8°, which brackets the 56° we use for March 2023 [5 Table 2]. Schulz’s 4° ± 1° is for the oval’s inside diameter, the polar cap’s boundary, and covers the ring current’s direct effect only [12 Abstract]. They differ by more than a factor of two, but all put the field far behind the storm.
Papers and data
Love and colleagues’ paper was read in the University of Oulu’s copy [5]; Vichare and colleagues’ in full on arXiv, with the journal’s abstract, whose numbers differ a little, used here [36]. Shiokawa and colleagues [39] and Silverman [40] were read in abstract only, so we have no storm-by-storm list for either. Kp for October 31 and November 1 is preliminary; Kyoto’s Dst from 2021 is provisional; USGS’s flows are preliminary, with an equipment gap just before the October 23 peak. The Pagosa Springs fit is a screening method, not USGS’s Bulletin 17C. Two flood stories from Colorado Public Radio refused our tools.

Watch items, as of about 17:00 UTC on November 1, 2026

The Pagosa Springs crest. Forecast at 17.0 ft early on November 2 [64]; the gauge read 7.84 ft and 1,990 cfs at 09:00 MST on November 1 [62].
Murasu’s landfall. Forecast between Nellore and Narsapur, 23:30 IST on November 2 to 04:00 IST on November 3 [71].
In-fa’s recurvature. Forecast to turn north-east and become extratropical by about November 5–6 [69 30W, Warning 37] [70].
Kp and Dst. GFZ’s Kp is preliminary after September 30, and Kyoto’s Dst is provisional or real-time for recent months [3][21].

What would change these verdicts

01
The chart’s event list, with a rule for what counts, applied the same way to every cycle. It could confirm or remove the storms we say it leaves out [1].
02
A second record of aurora in Florida on March 23–24, 2023, or spectra ruling out airglow in the Chiefland image, would make that claim True [13 Mar. 27].
03
A homogeneous catalogue showing aurora reaching lower for a given Dst in this cycle, by more than cameras and the published scalings allow.

Code and numbers

PY
aurora_numbers.py
Fetches GFZ’s Kp, Kyoto’s Dst, IGRF-14 and COV-OBS.x2, and prints every number of ours in sections 3–8 · 44 KB
JSON
aurora-numbers.json
Its output: storms by cycle, the five, the Florida records, cycle 23 against cycle 25, Florida’s latitudes, the edge shifts · 34 KB
CSV
low-latitude-aurora.csv
The table of low-latitude auroras, with Kp, Ap, Dst and reports [3][21] · 8 KB
CSV
storms-by-cycle.csv
Storms per cycle by Kp and Dst [3][21] · 1 KB
CSV
florida-magnetic-latitude.csv
Eight Florida places, 1900–2025 and at the named storms [4][46] · 3 KB
PY
sun_window.py
The flares, regions and solar wind for the 24 hours before the upload, from the four extracts below · 4 KB
CSV
goes-flares-2026-10-25-11-01.csv
GOES’s X-ray flare list for the 7 days read on November 1 [52] · 4 KB
CSV
swpc-events-2026-10-31-11-01.csv
Every line of the Center’s edited events of October 31 and November 1 [14] · 1 KB
CSV
swpc-srs-2026-10-31-11-01.csv
The Center’s Solar Region Summaries 304 and 305 [56] · 1 KB
CSV
solar-wind-2026-10-31-11-01.csv
15-minute medians of NOAA’s real-time solar wind [17] · 2 KB
PY
pagosa_flood_freq.py
The rough flood-frequency fit for the San Juan at Pagosa Springs [62] · 5 KB
CSV
pagosa-stage-flow-2026-10.csv
USGS’s preliminary stage and flow at or above 10 ft, October 22–25, 2026, without the 18 readings USGS marks as equipment faults [62] · 6 KB

Run them

All three scripts need only Python 3. python3 -I aurora_numbers.py downloads about 7 MB of public files the first time, or about 11 MB with --all-months, and stops at October 31, 2026, unless given --until and a later date; --all-months reads every Kyoto month, the test that the shorter list misses nothing. Kp and Ap are GFZ’s, CC BY 4.0 [3]. Dst is WDC Kyoto’s, for scientific use and no commercial use, with acknowledgement of the observatories and the WDC, and DOI 10.17593/14515-74000; that condition carries over to aurora-numbers.json, low-latitude-aurora.csv and storms-by-cycle.csv [21]. IGRF-14 and COV-OBS.x2 are public [4][46]. Keep the extracts in the script’s folder and run python3 -I sun_window.py; NOAA’s files roll over, so these are the record we used. python3 -I pagosa_flood_freq.py downloads USGS’s annual peaks, and needs its extract in the same folder.

Sources

Bracketed numbers refer to this list. For the episode [1], times are positions in the video (hours:minutes:seconds), from the first to the last line of its automatically generated transcript that holds the words quoted; positions of what is on screen are good to about 2 seconds. For the papers, Abstract names the part we used, § a section, p. a page and Table a table. For Spaceweather.com’s archive a date names the daily page. The times of SWPC’s, SIDC’s and the Joint Typhoon Warning Center’s products are UTC; the National Weather Service’s and the Weather Prediction Center’s stamps are local, as given; the India Meteorological Department’s are IST, five and a half hours ahead. The episode went up at 12:09 UTC on November 1, 2026. We read the sources that day, between about 15:54 and 17:02 UTC, and a few more by about 19:05 UTC (Vichare and colleagues’ journal record, Spaceweather.com’s galleries, the glossary, Wikipedia’s page and Kyoto’s rules), except those marked as read for earlier pages. Links checked November 1, 2026.

1
SpaceWeatherNews (S0) (November 1, 2026). Pole Shift Deep Dive Shows Rapid Decay | S0 News Nov.1.2026. YouTube video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5ryWCaVmII, published 12:09 UTC, 3 minutes 59 seconds, with its description as read on November 1, 2026. Quoted from the automatically generated transcript; times are positions in the video. Its chart was read from YouTube’s public preview frames and a 1080p view of the video; no frame is hosted here.
2
Spaceweather.com. Aurora galleries, its index of aurora photo galleries from 2000, with a short summary of each year. All rights reserved: paraphrased here, and photographs are linked, not hosted. Read November 1, 2026.
3
Matzka, J., Stolle, C., Yamazaki, Y., Bronkalla, O., and Morschhauser, A. (2021). The geomagnetic Kp index and derived indices of geomagnetic activity. Space Weather 19, e2020SW002641. Data: Matzka, J., Bronkalla, O., Tornow, K., Elger, K., and Stolle, C. (2021). Geomagnetic Kp index, V. 1.0, GFZ Data Services, as of November 1, 2026: definitive to September 30, 2026, preliminary after that. Kp from Geomagnetic Observatory Niemegk, GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences, CC BY 4.0; counted by us.
4
IAGA Working Group V-MOD (2024). International Geomagnetic Reference Field, 14th generation (IGRF-14): Gauss coefficients 1900–2025 and secular variation 2025–2030. Data file, NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information; retrieved November 1, 2026, the same file, by its SHA-256, as on our earlier pages. The numbers from it are ours.
5
Love, J. J., Mann, I. R., Qvick, T., and Mursula, K. (2025). What Is the Lowest Latitude of Discrete Aurorae During Superstorms? Space Weather 23(4), e2024SW004286. CC BY 4.0. We read the full text in the University of Oulu’s repository, as the publisher’s site refused our tools; § gives a section and Table a table.
6
Spaceweather.com. Daily archive pages: April 1, 2001, November 6, 7 and 8, 2001, November 25 and 26, 2001, October 30, 2003, November 21 and 22, 2003, November 8 and 9, 2004, May 16, 2005. All rights reserved: paraphrased here. A date names the page. Read November 1, 2026.
7
Glassmeier, K.-H., Vogt, J., Stadelmann, A., and Buchert, S. (2004). Concerning long-term geomagnetic variations and space climatology. Annales Geophysicae 22, 3669–3677. CC BY 3.0. As read for our check of the May 2024 aurora; p. gives its page.
8
Hayakawa, H., Hattori, K., Pevtsov, A. A., Ebihara, Y., Shea, M. A., McCracken, K. G., Daglis, I. A., Bhaskar, A. T., et al. (2021). The Intensity and Evolution of the Extreme Solar and Geomagnetic Storms in 1938 January. The Astrophysical Journal 909(2), 197. We read the accepted version, arXiv:2010.15762; § gives a section and p. its page.
9
Hayakawa, H., Ebihara, Y., and Hata, H. (2023). A review for Japanese auroral records on the three extreme space weather events around the International Geophysical Year (1957–1958). Geoscience Data Journal 10(1), 142–157. CC BY 4.0. We read the accepted version, arXiv:2112.09432; § gives a section.
10
NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center. NOAA Space Weather Scales. Read November 1, 2026.
11
Nanjo, S., and Shiokawa, K. (2024). Spatial structures of blue low-latitude aurora observed from Japan during the extreme geomagnetic storm of May 2024. Earth, Planets and Space 76, 156. CC BY 4.0.
12
Schulz, M. (1997). Direct influence of ring current on auroral oval diameter. Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics 102(A7), 14149–14154. Abstract only, from Crossref.
13
Spaceweather.com. Daily archive pages of March 24, March 26 and March 27, 2023, the last with Bill Williams’s Chiefland photograph, linked here, not hosted. All rights reserved: paraphrased here. Read November 1, 2026.
14
NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center. Edited Events for October 31 and November 1, 2026, from the archive (pub/indices/events/), as updated by 15:52 UTC on November 1; every line is in swpc-events-2026-10-31-11-01.csv.
15
NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center. Alerts, watches and warnings issued in October 2026, from the Center’s monthly archive (pub/alerts/): the G1 watch of October 28, 16:38 UTC, its extension of October 29, 19:10, and the alert of October 31, 19:14, that G2 levels had been reached. Read November 1, 2026.
16
NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center (October 31–November 1, 2026). Forecast Discussion, the issues of October 31 (0030 and 1230 UTC) and November 1 (0030 UTC, the last before the episode, and 1230 UTC, after it), from the Center’s archive (ftp.swpc.noaa.gov, pub/forecasts/discussion/). Read November 1, 2026.
17
NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center. Real-time solar wind, speed and magnetic field, one-minute values, read November 1, 2026, at 15:56 UTC, with a gap at 18–21 UT on October 31. The files roll over; our 15-minute medians are in solar-wind-2026-10-31-11-01.csv.
18
Abrams, J. F., Huntingford, C., Petrovskii, S., Buxton, J. E., Millman, H., Boulton, C. A., Parker, R. J., Ruiz Villena, C., Cunliffe, A. M., Clarke, J., Lucarini, V., Ghent, D., Cox, P. M., and Lenton, T. M. (2026). Science Needs for a Terrestrial Biosphere Tipping Point Early Warning System. Reviews of Geophysics 64(4), e2025RG000900, published online October 26, 2026. Peer reviewed; open access, CC BY 4.0. The episode’s link “Tipping Point Monitoring”. Read in full for its own page; p. gives a page.
19
Piassi, A. R., Denardini, C. M., Resende, L. C. A., Tavares, F. O., Espinosa, K. V., Marchezi, J. P., Picanço, G. A. S., Chen, S. S., da Silva, L. A., Mendes, O. J., and Guizelli, L. M. (2026). Enhanced Ground Magnetic Response Near the South American Magnetic Anomaly During the 10 May 2024 Sudden Commencement. ESS Open Archive preprint, posted October 30, 2026; not peer reviewed; all rights reserved. The episode’s link “SAA Ground Magnetism”. Checked on its own page.
20
The Watchers (March 28, 2023). Red auroras descend to Florida, marking first sighting since 2003 and 1989. The article the episode shows on screen. Paraphrased here; its photograph is linked, not hosted. Read November 1, 2026.
21
Nose, M., Iyemori, T., Sugiura, M., and Kamei, T., World Data Center for Geomagnetism, Kyoto (2015). Geomagnetic Dst index: hourly values from January 1957, from the WDC’s monthly pages, final to December 2020 and provisional to September 2026. Read November 1, 2026, under the WDC’s data usage rules: scientific use, no commercial use, with acknowledgement of the WDC and of the observatories that supply the data. The rules ask that the WDC be contacted before its real-time values are published: none is published here, and only the script’s --all-months test reads one month of them.
22
McCloud, C., and Lagatta, E., USA TODAY Network-Florida (April 16, 2025). Northern lights visible across section of US. Will Florida be able to see them ... again? Read through Yahoo News. Paraphrased here.
23
NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, announced through Newswise (April 27, 2000). Brushfires in the Sky, which describes a gallery of images from over parts of the United States as far south as Florida. Only this notice survives; the full story and gallery are gone from NASA’s site.
24
NASA (April 10, 2000). APOD: Aurora in Red and Yellow.
25
Spaceweather.com. Aurora photo galleries, each entry naming its photographer, place and date: November 5–6, 2001 (three pages), October 2003 (eight pages, about 65 entries for October 29–31) and November 2003 (pages 2 and 3, about two dozen entries for November 20). All rights reserved: searched by us for Florida, paraphrased here. Read November 1, 2026.
26
NOAA National Weather Service (2004). Service Assessment: Intense Space Weather Storms October 19 – November 07, 2003. US Department of Commerce. As read for our guide to Earth’s weakening field; p. gives its page.
27
Spaceweather.com. Daily archive pages: September 9, 2017, April 24 and 25, 2023, November 6 and 7, 2023, May 11, 2024, August 13, 2024, October 11 and 12, 2024, January 2 and 3, 2025, June 2, 2025, November 13, 2025, January 20 and 21, 2026, March 23, 2026, and its gallery’s item 230497. All rights reserved: paraphrased here, and photographs are linked, not hosted. A date names the page. Read November 1, 2026.
28
Talcott, A. (October 10, 2024; updated October 11). DID YOU SEE IT? Viewers share photos of Northern Lights over Florida. ClickOrlando. Its photographs are linked, not hosted.
29
NASA (November 14, 2025). APOD: Florida Northern Lights, a photograph from Shired Island, Florida, linked, not hosted.
30
McCloud, C., USA TODAY Network-Florida (January 20, 2026). Where, how to watch northern lights, even if you live in Florida. Read through Yahoo News. Paraphrased here.
31
Love, J. J., and Coïsson, P. (2016). The Geomagnetic Blitz of September 1941. Eos 97. Read at eos.org.
32
Hayakawa, H., Ebihara, Y., and Pevtsov, A. A. (2024). Analyses of Equatorward Auroral Extensions during the Extreme Geomagnetic Storm on 15 July 1959. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 527(3), 7298–7305. CC BY 4.0. Abstract only, from Crossref.
33
Hayakawa, H., Ebihara, Y., Willis, D. M., Toriumi, S., Iju, T., Hattori, K., et al. (2019). Temporal and Spatial Evolutions of a Large Sunspot Group and Great Auroral Storms Around the Carrington Event in 1859. Space Weather 17(11), 1553–1569. We read the accepted version, arXiv:1908.10326; its Table 1 lists other storms for comparison.
34
Shiokawa, K., Miyoshi, Y., Otsuka, Y., and Ogawa, T. (2005). Ground and satellite observation of low-latitude auroras at the initial phase of magnetic storms. Abstract E014-015, Japan Geoscience Union meeting 2005.
35
Manu, V., Shiokawa, K., Zhang, Q.-H., Raj, J. K., Balan, N., Shreedevi, P. R., and Zhang, D. (2025). Occurrence of red-green low latitude aurora during large geomagnetic storms: Two case studies. ESS Open Archive preprint, posted August 14, 2025; not peer reviewed. Abstract only.
36
Vichare, G., Bhaskar, A., Rawat, R., Yadav, V., Mishra, W., Angchuk, D., and Singh, A. K. (2024). Low-latitude Auroras: Insights from 2023 April 23 Solar Storm. The Astrophysical Journal 977(2), 171. CC BY 4.0. Its abstract from Crossref; the full text read as the preprint, arXiv:2405.08821v1.
37
Hayakawa, H., Ebihara, Y., Mishev, A., Koldobskiy, S., Kusano, K., Bechet, S., et al. (2025). The Solar and Geomagnetic Storms in 2024 May: A Flash Data Report. The Astrophysical Journal 979(1), 49. CC BY 4.0. We read the accepted version, arXiv:2407.07665; p. gives its page.
38
Shaw, J. A. (2026). Low-latitude aurora of 11-12 November 2025. In Light in Nature 2026, Proceedings of SPIE, published October 9, 2026. Abstract only, from Crossref.
39
Shiokawa, K., Ogawa, T., and Kamide, Y. (2005). Low-latitude auroras observed in Japan: 1999–2004. Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics 110(A5), 2004JA010706. Abstract only, from Crossref.
40
Silverman, S. M. (2003). Sporadic auroras. Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics 108(A4), 2002JA009335. Abstract only, from Crossref.
41
Meng, X., Tsurutani, B. T., and Mannucci, A. J. (2019). The Solar and Interplanetary Causes of Superstorms (Minimum Dst ≤ −250 nT) During the Space Age. Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics 124(6), 3926–3948. Title and record only, from Crossref; cited for the threshold in its title.
42
Kataoka, R., Nakano, S., Uchino, S., and Reddy, S. A. (2025). Extended red aurora associated with super substorm igniting the October 10, 2024 magnetic storm as revealed by citizen science. Earth, Planets and Space 77, 64. CC BY 4.0. Abstract only.
43
Buresh, M. (November 12, 2025). Buresh Blog: Record cold... Aurora borealis!... Leonid meteor shower. 104.5 WOKV, Jacksonville. Paraphrased here.
44
Simonenko, S. (2024). The Convincing Cosmic Energy Gravitational Genesis of the Strongest Geomagnetic Anomalies of the Magnetic Field of the Earth. Prevention and Treatment of Natural Disasters 3(1). CC BY 4.0. Read in full; the search for “acceler-” is ours. Crossref’s record misspells the title’s “Geomagnetic”.
45
NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center (March 2023). G3 (Strong) Geomagnetic Storming Observed 23 March, 2023. Simonenko’s reference 5.
46
Huder, L., Gillet, N., Finlay, C. C., Hammer, M. D., and Tchoungui, H. (2020). COV-OBS.x2: 180 years of geomagnetic field evolution from ground-based and satellite observations. Earth, Planets and Space 72, 160. CC BY 4.0. With the model file COV-OBS.x2-int, 1840–2020, from DTU Space, used here only for 1859.
47
Maffei, S., Livermore, P. W., and Mound, J. E. (2025). Sensitivity of the auroral zones to temporal changes in Earth’s internal magnetic field. Journal of Space Weather and Space Climate 15, 29. CC BY 4.0; excerpts, as read for our guide; § gives a section.
48
Yokoyama, N., Kamide, Y., and Miyaoka, H. (1998). The size of the auroral belt during magnetic storms. Annales Geophysicae 16(5), 566–573. As read for our check of the May 2024 aurora; p. gives its page.
49
Blake, S. P., Pulkkinen, A., Schuck, P. W., Glocer, A., and Tóth, G. (2021). Estimating Maximum Extent of Auroral Equatorward Boundary Using Historical and Simulated Surface Magnetic Field Data. Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics 126(2), e2020JA028284. CC BY 4.0. Abstract only.
50
Laj, C., and Kissel, C. (2015). An impending geomagnetic transition? Hints from the past. Frontiers in Earth Science 3, 61. CC BY 4.0. As read for our guide.
51
Nilsson, A., Suttie, N., Stoner, J. S., and Muscheler, R. (2022). Recurrent ancient geomagnetic field anomalies shed light on future evolution of the South Atlantic Anomaly. PNAS 119(24), e2200749119. CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. As read for our guide.
52
NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center. GOES X-ray flare list, last 7 days, read November 1, 2026, at 15:55 UTC. The file rolls over; the version used is in goes-flares-2026-10-25-11-01.csv.
53
NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center (November 1, 2026, 1230 UTC). 3-Day Forecast. Read November 1, 2026.
54
NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center. Solar Synoptic Analysis of November 1, 2026, 02:30 UTC, the forecasters’ hand-drawn map of the day’s sunspot regions and coronal holes, with its whole-disk flare forecast, as served on November 1.
55
Solar Influences Data Analysis Center (SIDC), Royal Observatory of Belgium (November 1, 2026). URSIgram 61101, its daily bulletin, issued 12:31 UTC. Read November 1, 2026.
56
NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center and US Air Force (October 31–November 1, 2026). Report of Solar-Geophysical Activity, SDF 304 (October 31, 2200 UTC), and Solar Region Summaries nos. 304 and 305 (pub/forecasts/SRS/), whose regions are in swpc-srs-2026-10-31-11-01.csv. Read November 1, 2026.
57
WDC-SILSO, Royal Observatory of Belgium, Brussels. Estimated international sunspot number, daily values, provisional, read November 1, 2026, at 15:55 UTC. CC BY-NC 4.0: used here non-commercially, with credit.
58
NOAA Weather Prediction Center (November 1, 2026). Short Range Forecast Discussion, 258 AM EST, before the upload, and Excessive Rainfall Discussion, as read at 16:23 UTC: the update of 1034 AM EST, after the upload, which keeps its previous discussion’s words on the San Juans.
59
National Weather Service (November 1, 2026). Area Forecast Discussions, all before the upload: San Diego, 329 AM PST; Phoenix, 431 AM MST; Flagstaff, 429 AM MST.
60
US Geological Survey, Water Science School. The 100-Year Flood. Read November 1, 2026.
61
Schumacher, R. (October 30, 2026). One of the most extreme rainstorms in state records. Colorado Climate Blog, Colorado Climate Center, Colorado State University. Paraphrased here.
62
US Geological Survey, National Water Information System. San Juan River at Pagosa Springs, Colorado (09342500): instantaneous stage and flow, preliminary, and annual peak flows to water year 2025. Read November 1, 2026; the readings at or above 10 ft are in pagosa-stage-flow-2026-10.csv.
63
Prentzel, O., and Mullane, S. (October 27, 2026). What officials know so far about major flood impacts in southwestern Colorado. The Colorado Sun. Paraphrased here.
64
National Weather Service, Grand Junction (October 31, 2026, 5:44 PM MDT). Flood Warning for the San Juan River at Pagosa Springs, from the active alerts for Colorado, read November 1, 2026, at 16:23 UTC, with the office’s Area Forecast Discussion of 454 AM MST, November 1.
65
Western Water Assessment (October 22, 2025). Rapid assessment of the October 2025 flooding of the San Juan River at Pagosa Springs. Paraphrased here.
66
RAMMB/CIRA, Colorado State University. TC Real-Time: WP302026, Typhoon In-fa, whose track history lists JTWC’s six-hourly positions and intensities. Read November 1, 2026.
67
National Weather Service. Glossary: Super Typhoon. Read November 1, 2026.
68
Wikipedia. Typhoon, CC BY-SA, read November 1, 2026, cited for the Joint Typhoon Warning Center’s line for a super typhoon; the center’s own FAQ page gave our tools no text.
69
Joint Typhoon Warning Center (November 1, 2026). Typhoon 30W (In-fa) Warning Nr 037, 011500Z, with its prognostic reasoning, and Tropical Cyclone 04B (Murasu) Warning Nr 003, 011500Z. Read at 16:22 UTC, after the upload.
70
Japan Meteorological Agency. Typhoon information for Typhoon No. 31 (In-fa), analysis of 15:00 UTC, November 1, 2026, with its forecast, and Kitamoto, A., National Institute of Informatics, Digital Typhoon: Typhoon 202631 (IN-FA), for its lifetime maximum, as read November 1, 2026.
71
India Meteorological Department (November 1, 2026). Press Release-2: Cyclonic Storm “Murasu”, issued 1630 IST; National Bulletin No. 7, issued 1730 IST; and Tropical Cyclone Advisory No. 1, issued 1200 UTC. All before the upload, at 17:39 IST. Cited, not reproduced.

Method

How this was checked

On November 1, 2026, we checked every statement, number and quotation on this page against its source: the episode’s automatically generated transcript, quoted verbatim with its timestamps, its description and its chart, which we read from the video’s frames [1]; GFZ’s Kp record and Kyoto’s Dst [3][21]; NOAA’s scales [10]; IGRF-14 and COV-OBS.x2 [4][46]; the published record of low-latitude aurora, from Love and colleagues’ table [5] and Hayakawa and colleagues’ reconstructions to Spaceweather.com’s archive and the Florida press; the studies that say what moves the auroral oval; for the Sun of October 31 and November 1, the Space Weather Prediction Center’s, SIDC’s and SILSO’s products; and for the weather, the Weather Prediction Center, the National Weather Service, USGS’s gauge, the Colorado Climate Center, the Joint Typhoon Warning Center, the Japan Meteorological Agency and the India Meteorological Department. In all, 71 sources. The two linked papers are checked on their own pages; nothing here re-rates them. Text from sources that are neither public domain nor openly licensed is paraphrased, with locators.

The verdicts and the items tagged “Our analysis” are our own assessment, built on the cited sources: our reading of the chart and our mapping of its points to storms; the two readings of Kp 9 and what each does to the episode’s two sentences; the storms per cycle by Kp and Dst; the table of low-latitude auroras, with each storm’s Kp, Ap and Dst; Florida’s magnetic latitude; the oval-edge arithmetic and the horizon arcs; the geometry of the Chiefland record; the flares and solar wind in the 24 hours before the upload; the rough flood-frequency fit at Pagosa Springs; and the distances between the cyclones’ landfall points.

We recomputed what we could from public data. Our script counts storms from GFZ’s and Kyoto’s files and evaluates IGRF-14 and COV-OBS.x2; its count of Kp 9o storms matches the chart’s Kp line in all nine cycles from 17 to 25 and the four storms at 9− or more on our review of October 28, and its centred-dipole latitudes reproduce Love and colleagues’ within about 0.1° at six sites. Reading all 838 months of Kyoto’s record, not only the stormy ones, added one storm at −200 nT and none at −250 nT. We could not establish which storms are on the chart’s aurora line or what “CONSENSUS v1.5” is, and we made no census of sightings. We could not confirm the 1981 lead, get Aurorasaurus’s reports, or read two Colorado Public Radio stories, which refused our tools. Forecasts are dated as of the upload or as read; what came after is listed under watch items.

After the page was built, a fresh reviewer who hadn’t seen the drafting re-ran the hosted scripts, which reproduced every number they cover, recounted the storms and rechecked the field numbers with scripts of their own, read the chart’s frames, and checked every quotation, locator and source. No verdict changed. The changes that followed: the comparison with cycle 23 now says what favours the episode, that Florida is named for all 4 of this cycle’s big storms against 4 of cycle 23’s 10, and weighs it; every Florida record, past and present, is held to one standard, with the galleries read for it, so “every” now fails on April 2000’s photograph and on reports from Florida’s magnetic latitude at 9−, not on sentences; the pace of the field’s decline follows our guide, and “Rapid Decay” is answered in those terms; and the forecast crest’s return period gives both methods, which disagree. Some thirty smaller points were applied as well, among them SAR arcs as a second alternative for March 2023, the limits of Love and colleagues’ model below 200 nT, and what rests on Wikipedia.

This page was researched and written with Claude, an AI assistant made by Anthropic, and then re-checked against its sources in a separate verification pass.

The verdicts on this page

False: The evidence contradicts the claim.
Misleading: Contains something true but leaves a false impression, usually by leaving out key context.
Overstated: Has some basis but claims much more than the evidence supports.
Unconfirmed: Rests on a preliminary result that hasn’t been confirmed.
True: The evidence supports the claim.

All ten verdicts, and how we check

Corrections

Corrections and changes

If we get something wrong, we fix it and record the change below with the date. If a correction changes a verdict, the log says what the old verdict was.

Change log

Nov 1, 2026Published on factchecked.science after a full check against the sources. Built from the episode’s transcript, description and on-screen chart, GFZ’s Kp, Kyoto’s Dst, IGRF-14 and COV-OBS.x2, the published record of low-latitude aurora, the checks of its two linked papers, and the day’s records from NOAA, SIDC, SILSO, USGS, the National Weather Service, the Joint Typhoon Warning Center, the Japan Meteorological Agency and the India Meteorological Department, read on November 1, 2026. A fresh review the same day changed no verdict: it led us to say what the comparison with cycle 23 gives the episode and weigh it, to hold every Florida record to one standard and rest “every” on April 2000’s photograph and the reports from Florida’s magnetic latitude at 9−, to describe the field’s decline as our guide does, to give both methods for the forecast crest, and to make some thirty smaller fixes; the card for the preprint follows that page’s own review.

Suggest a correction

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On no single reading of Kp 9 do both sentences hold, and aurora can’t time the field

Every super aurora was Kp 9

Four of five without Kp 9

Blew away the aurora record

Aurora shows pole shift’s speed

March 2023 hit Florida too

Quiet Sun, G2 from coronal hole

The Sun, the weather, two links and a chart of “super aurora”, in four minutes

In the episode’s words

“Three-month look”: Unverified

Aurora counts by cycle beside Kp 9o, with its own peak marked as qualified

Three versions on screen

The chart’s numbers as read, beside our count from GFZ

What reading it settles, and what it can’t

Kp 9o or Kp 9−: each reading saves one sentence, and none saves both

This cycle’s five, in GFZ’s Kp and Kyoto’s Dst

What each reading does to the two sentences

“Four of five without Kp 9”: Misleading

Before 1932 there is no Kp; after it, the record breaks the rule on 9o, and on 9− by magnetic latitude

Before 1932

NOAA’s scale does name Florida

Every storm we found with Florida named, past and present, by one standard

At 9−, by magnetic latitude

Below 9−, overhead

Below 9−, in Japan

Far below, by instrument or chance

“Every super aurora was Kp 9”: False

Counted by Florida’s name, cycle 23 comes close, though this cycle got there faster and from fewer big storms

The chart against what we found, by cycle

Cycle 23 against cycle 25, on the same measures

Storms per solar cycle, beside the episode’s aurora count

What reporting can explain

What it can’t explain

“Blew away the aurora record”: Overstated

Five storms with a Florida record, two of them resting on one camera

What is documented for Florida

March 2023

April 2023

“March 2023 hit Florida too”: Unconfirmed

“Five Floridian auroras”: Partly true

“Anomaly kickstarted pole shift”: Misread

The split in cycle 23: Context

The pole’s motion has carried Florida away from the auroral zone, about 2° since 1960

Florida’s magnetic latitude, 1900–2025

Florida’s magnetic latitude at six dates: centred dipole / apex, degrees

“Florida equivalent latitude”: Context

Storm strength moves the oval’s edge tens of times farther than the field’s decline

How far each thing moves the oval’s edge

What sets the edge

Seen from Florida, not over it

“Aurora shows pole shift’s speed”: False

The fair side

Eight small flares, a forecast storm that came in one step stronger, and a wind easing off

In the forecasters’ words

“On the left behind that dark coronal hole”

Sunspots and the stream

“Quiet Sun, G2 from coronal hole”: True

A real flood threat, a typhoon past its peak, and a cyclone forecast just south of the last

The Southwest: an atmospheric river

“Hundred-year”: rain or river?

“Second 100-year flood in 2 weeks”: Partly true

“The super typhoon”: Partly true

“Murasu hits south of Arnab”: True, as a forecast

The Japan track: True, as a forecast

Two papers, checked on their own pages, and a course, quoted

Early warning for tipping points in the biosphere

A sudden commencement near the South American Magnetic Anomaly

The promotion: The Roadmap

Where this check could be wrong

Sightings are not a census

A lead: South Florida, 1981

Our reading of the chart

Scalings are first approximations

Papers and data

Watch items, as of about 17:00 UTC on November 1, 2026

What would change these verdicts

Code and numbers

Run them

Related checks

Sources