It's written in an ambiguous way and you interpreted it incorrectly. "G5 Conditions were first observed at Earth at 6:54 p.m. EDT today." should be read like "today, G5 conditions where first observed at 6:54", not "G5 conditions where first observed today (at 6:54)".

G5 is defined as K_p = 9. That happened in Oct 2003. https://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/geophys/kp-ap/kp-freq/kp2003.frq