Current Capabilities Based on Requirements Warnings. Very little capability to warn for space weather events exists. Causal solar events can be detected in real time, but warnings based on these events lack sufficient reliability for immediate mitigation actions and do not provide useful leadtime or information on magnitude and duration of the event. Limited capability based on rudimentary models exists at operational centers. However, the models offer little capability beyond informations available from empirical methods and climatology.
Capability is best when data to initialize the models are received in a timely manner.
Forecasting capability suffers from the same weaknesses as warning capability except that the challenge is greater because forecasting requires longer leadtimes. This in turn requires a more complete understanding of both the solar events which drive space weather and the way the space environment reacts to those events. The relatively strong capability in this area derives from the fact that some post analyses are not required in real time. This allows the analyst to gather data which may not have been immediately available to operators and to assimilate it at leisure. In summary, these limited capabilities come from a basic understanding of space weather combined with a limited observation base and early computer models.