Coronal hole faces Earth
Sunday, 15 January 2017 21:41 UTC
The northern hemisphere polar coronal hole with an extension all the way down to the solar equator is back and sending an enhanced stream of solar wind towards our planet.
A coronal hole is facing Earth. Enhanced solar wind could arrive in ~3 days - Follow live on https://t.co/T1Jkf6i4Cb pic.twitter.com/TlGcBQ2aJU
— SpaceWeatherLive (@_SpaceWeather_) 16 januari 2017
This coronal hole is a familiar solar feature that survived countless of solar rotations but if we compare the current coronal hole with how it looked like during the last rotation, we do have to conclude that it shrunk quite a bit. It managed to cause a moderate G2 geomagnetic storm during the last rotation but its doubtful that we will reach G2 storm conditions during this rotation.
We should start to feel the effects of this coronal hole solar wind stream at our planet in about 48 to 72 hours from now. Storming up to the minor G1 geomagnetic storm level is possible on 18 January (Wednesday) according to the NOAA SWPC who issued a storm watch for that date.
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