G2 storm, Sunspot region 2651

Thursday, 20 April 2017 09:31 UTC

G2 storm, Sunspot region 2651

Moderate G2 geomagnetic storm conditions were observed this night due to persisting coronal hole solar wind stream influences. Conditions remain favorable for more geomagnetic storming likely up to the minor G1 storm level in the coming hours.

The header image was made this night by Scott Rock Photography from Onatario, Canada. Well done!

Sunspot region 2651

Old sunspot region 2644 which has received sunspot number 2651 has been fairly quiet since it produced two eruptive C-class solar flares on 18 April but don't let the silence deceive you. We now finally have a good view of this sunspot region as it continues to rotate more and more into an earth-facing position. While it is not a terribly complex region, it does have a small but compact delta sunspot in the northernmost sunspot cluster. This means the region is not a one-trick pony and more flaring activity should not be excluded. There will be a minor chance for an M-class event as long as this magnetic delta structure persists. Well worth keeping an eye on this sunspot region as it faces Earth in the coming days!

SDO/HMI Intensitygram and Magnetogram overlay of AR2651. Delta indicated with a circle. Images available on our SDO page.

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.

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