We successfully completed our half marathon walk. I'm so proud of my wife Hayley @hlpilch.bsky.social who has an inoperable brain tumour and she managed the whole distance! Any last donations would be greatly appreciated at www.justgiving.com/team/brainyp...

People in my town (Southern UK) have seen the aurora tonight, but sadly too cloudy when I looked

I'm doing a half marathon walk with my wife next month to raise money for th Brain Tumour Charity. Any donations over this festive period would be greatly appreciated 👍 Merry Christmas all! www.justgiving.com/page/benclew...

This week has been a tough week, trying to communicate about an important space weather topic (the Airbus incident), through all the noise of instant arm chair experts. Especially those claiming about poor communication and then go spurting rubbish themselves. One can only do so much, but we try.

NEW: I just wrote up an explainer for the BBC about Airbus's recall of 6,000 aircraft late last week - after a malfunction caused by space radiation. Includes some detail on why this extraordinary phenomenon can happen and why we need to prepare for it more. www.bbc.com/future/artic...

We have released our expert comment from our research group on the recent Airbus event

EASA issues Emergency Airworthiness Directive for Airbus A320 family aircraft Elevator aileron computers (ELAC). ad.easa.europa.eu/ad/2025-0268-E

People might start believing us when we say solar radiation could have huge impacts to aircraft avionics! #spaceweather #avgeek #aviation BBC News - Airbus requests immediate modifications to thousands of aircraft www.bbc.com/news/article...

World-first radiation data through Earth’s lower atmosphere has been collected in a collaboration between the Met Office, @uniofsurrey.bsky.social and @knmi.nl. Find out more in our blog 👇 www.metoffice.gov.uk/blog/2025/wo...

I conducted an interview for Reuters last week on our recent atmospheric radiation instruments, fitted to weather balloon radiosondes. You can find the video link below - This is the first time solar radiation storm data has been collected through the entire depth of the atmosphere! #spaceweather

You’ve been kidnapped. The characters from the last TV show you watched are trying to rescue you. Who’s coming to save you? Guess, I'll be okay!

Ongoing solar radiation storm originating at 10:15 this morning. Initial airborne data and model results are indicating this was an ICAO severe radiation event for aviation. Airborne instruments are still operating to collect the end of the event #spaceweather #aviation #avgeek

I hope everyone at #ESWW2025 has a lovely time. Sadly the travel was too prohibitive for us at Surrey for the limited sessions related to our area. Enjoy the scenery and I hope the aurora shows up!

Safe to say that the AI spaghetti detection still needs work for my printer...

Tonight was a good night to be an #itfc fan 😃

Sadly this feels like a backwards step for space in the UK. Just as the rest of the world is pushing on, the UK again halts itself. Black arrow history repeating again... BBC News - UK independent space agency scrapped to cut costs www.bbc.com/news/article...

On the pitch at Portman Rd for Ed Sheeran! It's great to be back in Town #itfc

Not much to share at the moment, but lots going on project wise behind the scenes. However, I thought the internet might enjoy these two adorable pups who keep me on my toes at home.

Currently on what is becoming a regular trip to CERN to test our SAIRA atmospheric radiation instruments in the beam facilities here. They give a representative of the enhanced radiation environment that aircraft would see in large solar radiation storms. #spaceweather #avgeek #radiationprotection

Last week I had the fun of travelling to Shetland to install a new compact neuton monitor at the @metoffice.bsky.social site in Lerwick. This monitor will be essential to the UK's #spaceweather resilience as it'll provide important radiation flux data to #aviation and ground based infrastructure

2nd leg of the journey to Lerwick and a nice little ATR42 this time. Going up to install a Neutron Monitor at the @metoffice.bsky.social weather station

Had a day for me today at #Salute52 It was great to get back to gaming and shows after a few years away. Had fun smashing some Roman Legions in Strength and Honour and bought way too much paint... #wargaming

Ipswich finally get to winning ways in 2025. Almost certainly too late for survival but another small inch of hope to cling on to! #itfc

The SpaceX fram2 mission that will send humans over the poles for the first time has LAUNCHED! This is relevant to our community since Jannicke Mikkelsen, one of the astronauts on board, will be filming the aurora over the north and south poles! #heliophysics

BOOM! What a beautiful #SolarFlare (just now). This eruptive event reached the X-class level, and produced this stunning coronal mass ejection. The flare source region will rotate to face Earth in the coming week. Further strong solar activity is likely! #spaceweather

Last week at the US Space Weather Workshop, I handed over a balloon SAIRA instrument to from the Surrey Space Centre to @knmi.bsky.social It's excellent to see growing international interest in our instruments and space weather radiation measuring capabilities. #spaceweather #radiationprotection

There are 3 space-weather posts opening up at the UK Met Office Space Weather Operations Centre. Please circulate - it would be great to further strengthen the MOSWOC team. careers.metoffice.gov.uk/join-us/sear... careers.metoffice.gov.uk/join-us/sear... careers.metoffice.gov.uk/join-us/sear...

Great views of the aurora for the entire flight home. Safely back at Heathrow! #aurora #spaceweather

Onboard and hoping we make it to Heathrow

#wingfriday from last week. Sadly the incident at Heathrow looks like my Friday flight home is in trouble...

On an afternoon break from Space Weather Workshop and I'm currently sat near the top of the 1st Flatiron

Here's my #wingfriday flying out of Keflavik last weekend #aviation #avgeek

A friend included this anti-acknowledgement section on her PhD thesis. She also added the proposition: “Systematic bullying and undermining of girls and women in STEM starts early on and is the reason why they do not stay in science and related fields.” Absurd we still need to go through this 🧪👩‍🔬

Some better photos from last night, courtesy of our tour guide! #aurora #northernlights #spaceweather #iceland

Had some great views of the aurora tonight up in Iceland. Lucky that the clouds stayed away from our area. Always great for a space weather scientist to see the lights and I would stay out all night if possible! #spaceweather #aurora

An exciting opportunity here to build a new data assimilation scheme for the unique (but underused) heliospheric imager data. This could be huge for space-weather forecasting.

I'll be presenting on the Weds at Space Weather Workshop in Boulder at the UK's inflight radiation measurement program. Including model validation, and aims for future instruments/systems for aviation Detailed conference agenda below #spaceweather #sww25 #avgeek cpaess.ucar.edu/sites/defaul...

Jeez. Getting less keen on my work trip to Colorado next month by the day. Deleting articles that focus on women is madness.

I've booked a holiday to Iceland in early March. Hopefully the sun throws some good CMEs our way at that time so I get a great view of some aurora there!

Excited to share I'll be attending NOAA's Space Weather Workshop in March. My first international conference as an invited speaker for my work on airborne radiation instruments in the UK Who else is going?

Great to be back at Portman Road. Nice and comfortable at half time #itfc

On my way to Portman Rd from Winchester. It's a long day, but great to go and see Town for a game as I can't get to many. Fingers crossed we don't throw the cup game mind #itfc #FACup

This is true! Not everyone sees colors the same way. For a nuanced breakdown, I have a blog article on my site which is worth checking out: theauroraguy.com/blogs/blog/w...

Hey University students, want to learn more about #SpaceWeather 🚀☔? You're still in time to apply for #ESA's Space Weather Training Course in Belgium. Details found here: www.esa.int/Education/ES...

Happy #wingfriday My research group at the Surrey Space Centre are looking for pilots, aircrew or frequent flyers interested in measuring their radiation exposure at altitude to fly some monitoring instruments for us. We are also after valuable user inputs to develop our next generation of units!

Active, high-latitude auroras should be visible in northern Europe tonight, with mid-latitude viewing possible during substorms.

Shame the weather is miserable in the South of the UK tonight. Sadly a blanket of low clouds and rain blocking any view!

Wow! We have reached G4/SEVERE geomagnetic storming. The Hp 30 index has reached 8.33. NOAA SWPC has just posted a warning for the G4 threshold being reached. This is a serious geomagnetic storm! #heliophysics ☀️

Ipswich Town, a premier league win at home at last. And against Chelsea with a clean sheet! Top way to sign off an incredible year #itfc

This is fantastic news. Congratulations to the whole mission team!