Filament eruption, weak CME

Friday, 15 January 2016 15:45 UTC

An asymmetrical full halo coronal mass ejection was launched at a speed of 250km/s according to the SIDC. This is very slow for a coronal mass ejection and while it is likely that this coronal mass ejection will arrive at Earth, it should blend in with the ambient solar wind due to the slow speed meaning there will likely not be a noticeable shock arrival at Earth.

Animation: ESA NASA SOHO/LASCO C2 animation of the asymmetrical full halo coronal mass ejection.

What that means is that it might be hard to spot this CME in the solar wind data from ACE when it arrives at Earth. The total strength of the IMF (Bt) will likely become enhanced when this coronal mass ejection arrives and that could be as late as Tuesday, 19 January. If the Bz turns southward around that time we might see active geomagnetic conditions which equals a Kp of 4 but anything beyond that is unlikely. We have to stress that this is not a major coronal mass ejection but every bit of activity is welcome in these quiet times we'd say!