Moderate G2 geomagnetic storm

Thursday, 2 March 2017 16:41 UTC

Moderate G2 geomagnetic storm

The anticipated coronal hole solar wind stream really packed a punch and gave us moderate G2 geomagnetic storming conditions yesterday. The solar wind stream turned out to be stronger than anticipated as only minor G1 geomagnetic storm conditions were expected! The north-south direction of the IMF (Bz) dropped down as low as -17nT yesterday which is very respectable for a CIR ahead of the coronal hole solar wind stream.

 bWe are still occasionally reaching the minor G1 geomagnetic storm threshold today as the solar wind speed remains high (between 700 and 750km/s at the moment) but we are not expected stronger storm conditions than the this. Be sure to follow us on Twitter for automated alerts so you will be notified instantly if we are at geomagnetic storm levels.

Fantastic auroral displays were seen at many high latitude locations today and yesterday. Even folks at upper middle latitudes locations managed to capture some aurora. Below we have a couple of images. Enjoy!

Header image: Calum Gladstone Photography (Northumberland, England)

Mark Ferrier (Scotland)

Tobias Åberg (Ljungskile, Sweden)

Kristopher Roller (Iceland)

Kristopher Roller (Iceland)

Steven Lomas (South Shields, England)

Thomas Tomz Henriksen (Gilbjerg Head, Denmark)

Robin Eriksson Franzén (Kalix, Sweden)

Tommy Richardsen (Nordreisa, Norway)

Ollie Taylor Photography (Scotland)

Owen Humphreys (Northumberland, England)

Susanne Johansson (Gotland, Sweden)

Richard Hoeg (Minnesota, USA)

Benjamin Maverick Woods (Tasmania, Australia)

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.

Thank you for reading this article! Did you have any trouble with the technical terms used in this article? Our help section is the place to be where you can find in-depth articles, a FAQ and a list with common abbreviations. Still puzzled? Just post on our forum where we will help you the best we can! Never want to miss out on a space weather event or one of our news articles again? Subscribe to our mailing list, follow us on Twitter and Facebook and download the SpaceWeatherLive app for Android and iOS!

Latest news

Support SpaceWeatherLive.com!

A lot of people come to SpaceWeatherLive to follow the Sun's activity or if there is aurora to be seen, but with more traffic comes higher server costs. Consider a donation if you enjoy SpaceWeatherLive so we can keep the website online!

SpaceWeatherLive Pro
Support SpaceWeatherLive with our merchandise
Check out our merchandise

Latest alerts

Get instant alerts!

Space weather facts

Last X-flare2024/12/08X2.2
Last M-flare2024/12/23M8.9
Last geomagnetic storm2024/12/17Kp5+ (G1)
Spotless days
Last spotless day2022/06/08
Monthly mean Sunspot Number
November 2024152.5 -13.9
December 2024106.6 -45.9
Last 30 days116.1 -41.8

This day in history*

Solar flares
12024M8.9
22015M6.75
31998M3.34
42013M2.36
52013M1.97
DstG
12002-67
22000-62G2
31989-60
42014-57
51982-53G1
*since 1994

Social networks