Coronal hole faces Earth, G1 watch

Tuesday, 22 October 2019 14:34 UTC

Coronal hole faces Earth, G1 watch

A large coronal hole is facing our planet today. Most of you might remember this coronal hole as it is the same coronal hole that faced our planet on 28 August and 24 September. This coronal hole has always been a reliable source for geomagnetic storm activity a few days later. What can we expect this time around?

Let's find out! The size of this coronal hole seems to be fairly similar to the size that it had during the previous rotation. Based on that fact, the geomagnetic storms caused by this coronal hole back in August and September and the data from STEREO Ahead we can conclude that minor G1 geomagnetic storm conditions are likely after the high speed solar wind stream arrives. The Co-rotating Interaction Region (CIR) ahead of the high speed solar wind stream is likely to arrive at Earth on Thursday, 24 October. The NOAA SWPC thinks this as well and has already issued a minor G1 geomagnetic storm watch for Thursday, 24 October. The effects of the high speed solar wind stream should last well into Friday and perhaps Saturday as well. Charge your camera batteries! If you are at a high enough latitude it looks like you are in for some nice auroral activity!

Live northern lights YouTube stream

Last Saturday I decided to try something new. I put a camera on my balcony and filmed the northern lights and streamed it to our YouTube channel in real time. While the website and our webmaster originate from Belgium, yours truly resides in Swedish Lapland and from my balcony I can occasionally see some nice northern lights. I tested my live streaming equipment on Saturday and when there was some aurora to be seen I decided to go online. It wasn't the best aurora display ever observed but all of your positive reactions were very nice to see! I plan to do this more often whenever time allows, the weather cooperates and of course when there is some aurora activity. Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel (bet you never heard that before) if you'd like to be notified whenever we upload a video or start a live stream. Below you can watch our first live stream that we aired on Saturday evening. Thanks!

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-flare2024/02/22X6.3
Last M-flare2024/03/19M1.4
Last geomagnetic storm2024/03/03Kp6- (G2)
Spotless days
Last spotless day2022/06/08
Monthly mean Sunspot Number
February 2024124.7 +1.7

This day in history*

Solar flares
12003M5.34
22003M2.33
32000M2.29
42003M2.23
52003M2
ApG
1200137G3
2200638G2
3200219G1
4201526G1
5200511G1
*since 1994

Social networks