Coronal hole faces Earth

Friday, 17 August 2018 18:56 UTC

Coronal hole faces Earth

We are still under the influence of the waning effects of a solar wind stream from a coronal hole but the party isn't over just yet: another coronal hole is facing our planet today and sending yet another high speed solar wind stream towards our planet!

The previous coronal hole caused several periods where a Kp of 4 was reached which stands for active geomagnetic conditions. The minor G1 geomagnetic storm threshold was not reached which was to be expected.

Today's coronal hole is located on the Sun's southern hemisphere but is a bit fragmented with the darkest patches near the equator. This coronal hole faced us last month as well and briefly caused active geomagnetic conditions. The NOAA SWPC issued a minor G1 geomagnetic storm watch for this coronal hole last month and considering that the coronal hole opened up a bit over the past few weeks we expect that NOAA issues another minor G1 geomagnetic storm watch. We think that active geomagnetic conditions (Kp4) are likely when the solar wind stream from this coronal hole arrives and yes, even minor G1 geomagnetic storm conditions (Kp5) are not impossible. We expect the solar wind stream to arrive during the second half of 20 August or early on 21 August.

Any mentioned solar flare in this article has a scaling factor applied by the Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC), the reported solar flares are 42% smaller than for the science quality data. The scaling factor has been removed from our archived solar flare data to reflect the true physical units.

Thank you for reading this article! Did you have any trouble with the technical terms used in this article? Our help section is the place to be where you can find in-depth articles, a FAQ and a list with common abbreviations. Still puzzled? Just post on our forum where we will help you the best we can! Never want to miss out on a space weather event or one of our news articles again? Subscribe to our mailing list, follow us on Twitter and Facebook and download the SpaceWeatherLive app for Android and iOS!

Latest news

Support SpaceWeatherLive.com!

A lot of people come to SpaceWeatherLive to follow the Sun's activity or if there is aurora to be seen, but with more traffic comes higher server costs. Consider a donation if you enjoy SpaceWeatherLive so we can keep the website online!

23%
Support SpaceWeatherLive with our merchandise
Check out our merchandise

Latest alerts

Get instant alerts!

Space weather facts

Last X-flare2024/03/28X1.1
Last M-flare2024/03/28M9.7
Last geomagnetic storm2024/03/25Kp5 (G1)
Spotless days
Last spotless day2022/06/08
Monthly mean Sunspot Number
February 2024124.7 +1.7

This day in history*

Solar flares
12024X1.1
22024M9.7
32024M7.0
42001M6.17
52024M6.1
ApG
1200144G2
2200327G2
3199721G2
4201727G1
5200421G1
*since 1994

Social networks