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We are in reasonably exciting times just now. Of course if you start to think like that it seems you are doing nothing but preparing your self for yet another long stand in the cold with an anti climax in the end. Over the nights of the10^th and 11^th I was hoping for a glancing blow from an earlier CME. Over the last two nights the positive magnetic field has pushed almost everything away from us and there has been almost nothing to be seen. Ironicaly we have had a couple of the finest clearest nights you could wish for. Even the huge moon is rising later and helping to give us nice dark skys from the off. EPAM has risen but there is so much going on I think it is more of a harbinger of current flare activity happening now. The previous few days have seen 2297 producing continuous flaring with loads of C class, several strong M class, some of which produced coronal mass ejections and while not coming directly at us are expected to have some influence. last night the one we are all waiting for an X2.2 with a CME came ripping out followed by another M class. NOAA has a storm warning in place now and they are expecting potential effects from the Ms to scrape past us and stir the pot. 2297 Is now coming in to a position where it will be fully geo effective. It still maintains a complicated magnetic structure which is good because it means there is still some potential for more very big flares as it really starts to face us. We are about to feel the effects of an incoming HSS from a recurring equatorial hole CH658. Hopefully the high speed solar wind and the clouds of plasma will cook up something for us. All kitchen analogies aside I am really hoping that this is one pot that will boil over on the stove.......With all that said we all know fine there are no givens in this game. Many of you will have stood here before, X flare hurling towards us with the UK press hyping it and expectations sky high so lets be realistic. There is the potential for lights over the next two nights, maybe even more. As the last two nights and other X events as well have shown it is just as easy for all of this to simply bounce off the magnetic field and carry on past us, and after all this is what the planets magnetic field does so well, protect us from this dangerous shit. That aside I am some looking forwards to darkness. The game may just be afoot.