Failed storm prediction, Next coronal hole

Thursday, 18 May 2017 13:22 UTC

A coronal hole is facing Earth. Enhanced solar wind could arrive in ~3 days - Follow live on https://t.co/T1Jkf6i4Cb pic.twitter.com/IHjk2f3PC2

— SpaceWeatherLive (@_SpaceWeather_) May 17, 2017

This coronal hole is also a coronal hole that has been around for a long time but a quick comparison with how this coronal hole looked like during the last rotation shows that it did not change all that much. In fact it might even have become slightly bigger.

That is excellent news as this coronal hole caused solar wind speeds up to 750km/s during the previous rotation and a lot of geomagnetic storming. The NOAA SWPC has a moderate G2 geomagnetic storm watch in effect for tomorrow evening (UTC) which could very well be possible considering the history of this coronal hole. Well worth to keep your eyes on the solar wind data starting tomorrow evening to see how this is going to develop. The moon is lit for about 50% so it shouldn't be a major problem. Especially for our southern hemisphere sky watchers this could be a very interesting events as their nights are becoming longer and longer but even middle latitude sky watchers in Europe and North America should be alert.