There was a big CME the night before last (2026 01 19) and HF propagation is still terrible two days later. WSPR spots world wide were down to about 60% of normal on the 20th, and the 95%-ile distances are down too.
┌──────────────window─┬─total_spots─┬─total_spots_bar──────┐
│ 2026-01-17 00:00:00 │ 5832137 │ ███████████████████▏ │
│ 2026-01-18 00:00:00 │ 5874208 │ ███████████████████▎ │
│ 2026-01-19 00:00:00 │ 5588762 │ █████████████████▉ │
│ 2026-01-20 00:00:00 │ 3394762 │ ██████▉ │
│ 2026-01-21 00:00:00 │ 4978963 │ ██████████████▉ │
│ 2026-01-22 00:00:00 │ 5028843 │ ███████████████▏ │
│ 2026-01-23 00:00:00 │ 5373320 │ ████████████████▊ │
│ 2026-01-24 00:00:00 │ 5375856 │ ████████████████▉ │
│ 2026-01-25 00:00:00 │ 6052942 │ ████████████████████ │
│ 2026-01-26 00:00:00 │ 5898873 │ ███████████████████▍ │
│ 2026-01-27 00:00:00 │ 8058 │ │
└─────────────────────┴─────────────┴──────────────────────┘
┌──────────────window─┬─q95_distance─┬─q95_distance_bar─────┐
│ 2026-01-17 00:00:00 │ 4409 │ ███████▎ │
│ 2026-01-18 00:00:00 │ 5133 │ █████████████ │
│ 2026-01-19 00:00:00 │ 5515 │ ████████████████ │
│ 2026-01-20 00:00:00 │ 3717 │ █▋ │
│ 2026-01-21 00:00:00 │ 3963 │ ███▋ │
│ 2026-01-22 00:00:00 │ 4073 │ ████▌ │
│ 2026-01-23 00:00:00 │ 4523 │ ████████▏ │
│ 2026-01-24 00:00:00 │ 4615 │ ████████▉ │
│ 2026-01-25 00:00:00 │ 5188 │ █████████████▌ │
│ 2026-01-26 00:00:00 │ 5752 │ ██████████████████ │
│ 2026-01-27 00:00:00 │ 5980 │ ███████████████████▊ │
└─────────────────────┴──────────────┴──────────────────────┘
To show the number of spots/day try this SQL at wspr.rocks
SELECT
toStartOfInterval(time, INTERVAL 24 HOUR) as window,
count() as total_spots,
bar(total_spots, 2000000, 6000000, 20) as total_spots_bar
FROM wspr.rx
WHERE
time > '2026-01-17' and time <= '2026-01-27'
GROUP BY window
ORDER BY window asc
and for the distances:
SELECT
toStartOfInterval(time, INTERVAL 24 HOUR) as window,
round(quantile(0.95)(distance)) as q95_distance,
bar(q95_distance, 3500, 6000, 20) as q95_distance_bar
FROM wspr.rx
WHERE
time > '2026-01-17' and time <= '2026-01-27'
GROUP BY window
ORDER BY window asc
I recon you can see the sunspot cycles too:
┌───────year─┬─q95_distance─┬─q95_distance_bar───┐
│ 2008-01-01 │ 8203 │ █████████▏ │
│ 2009-01-01 │ 8498 │ █████████▉ │
│ 2010-01-01 │ 8051 │ ████████▋ │
│ 2011-01-01 │ 8728 │ ██████████▋ │
│ 2012-01-01 │ 11205 │ █████████████████▋ │
│ 2013-01-01 │ 8082 │ ████████▊ │
│ 2014-01-01 │ 8175 │ █████████ │
│ 2015-01-01 │ 8076 │ ████████▊ │
│ 2016-01-01 │ 7123 │ ██████ │
│ 2017-01-01 │ 5952 │ ██▋ │
│ 2018-01-01 │ 6520 │ ████▎ │
│ 2019-01-01 │ 6555 │ ████▍ │
│ 2020-01-01 │ 6782 │ █████ │
│ 2021-01-01 │ 6828 │ █████▏ │
│ 2022-01-01 │ 6961 │ █████▌ │
│ 2023-01-01 │ 7124 │ ██████ │
│ 2024-01-01 │ 7074 │ █████▉ │
│ 2025-01-01 │ 6810 │ █████▏ │
│ 2026-01-01 │ 5835 │ ██▍ │
└────────────┴──────────────┴────────────────────┘
For a one-line query try something like this:
curl $((tr '\n' ' ' | sed 's/ /%20/g') <<EOF
http://db1.wspr.live/?query=
SELECT
toStartOfYear(time) as year,
round(quantile(0.95)(distance)) as q95_distance,
bar(q95_distance,5000,12000,20) as q95_distance_bar
FROM wspr.rx
WHERE
toStartOfYear(time)>'2007-01-01'
GROUP BY year
ORDER BY year asc
FORMAT PrettyCompact
EOF
)
https://www.hamqsl.com/shortcut.html https://www.hamqsl.com/Understanding%20Propagation.pdf k-index data https://isgi.unistra.fr/data_download.php