Coronal hole faces Earth
Saturday, 20 February 2016 01:37 UTC
We are still under the influence of a coronal hole solar wind stream that comes from a southern hemisphere coronal hole but the stream is waning and the strongest geomagnetic effects are now over. Sky watchers do not have to worry that they will be without aurora for very long as another coronal hole is now facing Earth.
A quick look back shows us that the southern hemisphere coronal hole did not disappoint us and gave us multiple days where we reached geomagnetic storm levels. Aurora filled the skies at many high latitude locations and were even captured on latitudes as low as the Netherlands!
Image: Marcel de Bont (Skellefteå, Sweden)
Image: Jüri Voit (Estonia)
Video: James Rowley-Hill (Norfolk, UK)
Image: Vaughn Johnson Photography (Alaska, USA)
Image: Colin Taylor (Kirkwall, Scotland)
Image: Vincent van Leijen (The Netherlands)
Now we have yet another coronal hole that faces Earth. This time its a southern extension of the northern hemisphere polar coronal hole that faces our planet. Solar wind flowing from this coronal hole could arrive in two to three days from now and bring us another round of geomagnetic unrest and of couse... aurora!
Header image: the coronal hole as seen by NASA SDO.
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Current data suggests there is a slight possibility for aurora to appear at the following high latitude regions in the near future
Whitehorse, YTAnchorage, AK, Fairbanks, AK, Utqiagvik, AK
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Monday, 24 March 2025
Coronal hole faces Earth
The anticipated strong G3 geomagnetic storm watch never materialized as the coronal mass ejection that was supposed to arrive early yesterday didn't arrive until today just past midnight UTC. The impact was very lackluster with the Bt (total strength of the IMF) increasing to a moderate 15nT at best and the solar wind speed reaching just 420km/s. A far cry from the anticipated 700 to 800km/s. That once again goes to show how hard it is to forecast space weather events and any resulting geomagnetic conditions. We remain under the influence of the CME and high latitude sky watchers should remain alert for some nice aurora displays but middle latitude sky watchers will probably have to wait for the next opportunity.
13:55 UTC - Coronal hole
A transequatorial coronal hole is facing Earth. Enhanced solar wind could arrive in ~3 days
02:45 UTC - Geomagnetic activity
Active geomagnetic conditions (Kp4) Threshold Reached: 02:33 UTC
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