Coronal hole, Sunspot region 2470

Saturday, 12 December 2015 19:19 UTC

This coronal hole is not very big and it is not trans equatorial but we should again see an enhanced solar wind stream at Earth in about 3 days from now, on 15 December. Active (Kp4) geomagnetic conditions are possible once the stream arrives.

Sunspot region 2470

A new sunspot region on the north-east limb which has recieved sunspot number 2470 is currently producing C-class solar flares. The strongest of these flares was a C7.8 solar flare that peaked at 13:46 UTC.

We can not yet see much of this sunspot region apart from one large sunspot. More sunspots are likely still hiding behind the limb. In the coming days we will find out if it has what it takes to produce M-class solar flares.

All the other sunspot regions on the Earth-facing solar disk are magnetically simple and are unlikely candidates to produce M-class solar flares. SOHO/LASCO coronagraph imagery has been limited the past few days due to a so-called keyhole period for the SOHO spacecraft but no earth-directed coronal mass ejections were spotted in available imagery.