That's what I'm most curious about -- how do you see that it hasn't arrived yet when you're looking at SWPC?

Here is the SWPC forecast [0]

Time_UTC,Nov_12,Nov_13,Nov_14

00-03UT,8.67 (G4),6.67 (G3),4.67 (G1)

03-06UT,8.33 (G4),6.33 (G2),4.00

06-09UT,7.00 (G3),6.00 (G2),3.33

09-12UT,7.00 (G3),4.67 (G1),3.67

12-15UT,6.00 (G2),4.00,3.33

15-18UT,5.67 (G2),3.33,3.00

18-21UT,7.67 (G4),4.33,3.00

21-00UT,6.00 (G2),4.67 (G1),3.33

So I guess 18-21UTC today it'll get around 7.7kP, but that's lower than what hit this morning, when I'd expect X5.1 to be larger? Is that how I should interpret this?

[0] https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/communities/space-weather-enthusia...

Yes, you have it correct.

However, predicting the effects of solar flares is very difficult. Not only does the particle stream have to hit the Earth, it has to couple with the magnetic field.

Large flares can cause small events on Earth and vice versa.

Thanks for clarifying. I’m bummed that I didn’t prioritize going out last night to observe. I was thinking bigger glare would be better aurora tonight.

I also use https://spaceweathernews.com/ Lots of data in there for us to see the sources and effects