Space weather update

Wednesday, 17 September 2014 15:02 UTC

Space weather update

Solar activity is at low levels with only the occasional C-class solar flare mainly from sunspot region 2164. There has also not been any clear sign of a Coronal Mass Ejection passage which was expected from a filament eruption back on September 12 (news item) so it does seem likely that there wasn't any ejecta heading towards Earth after all. The Low Energy Protons as measured be ACE EPAM continue to trend back towards background levels which also suggest there is no Coronal Mass Ejection on it's way to Earth.

EPAM 3 days

Sunspot regions
The only group of interest is sunspot group 2164 which developed a weak magnetic delta structure within it's trailer spots. It is however a relatively small sunspot group and M-class flaring remains unlikely, but not entirely impossible. One thing to note is that this sunspot region is already rotating towards the west-limb so any future eruptions will likely be directed away from Earth.

Other than sunspot region 2164 there are not really any other sunspot groups on the earth-facing disk worth mentioning right now. There is a large coronal hole facing Earth right now on the Sun's southern hemisphere but it is likely at a latitude too high to really have any influence on Earth. We expect quiet space weather conditions both on the Sun and at Earth for at least the coming three days, especially now that also sunspot regions 2157 and 2158 (source of the X1 solar flare) are leaving the earth-facing solar disk.

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.

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