Coronal hole faces Earth

Tuesday, 4 September 2018 15:46 UTC

This coronal hole existed during the previous rotation as well and caused one brief three hour period where active geomagnetic conditions were reached, a Kp of 4. Compared to the last rotation, this coronal hole has become slightly larger and well defined. It remains a fairly small coronal hole so its effects will likely be fairly modest but it is something interesting to keep an eye on for high latitude sky watchers. Our automated coronal hole detection system did its job and posted an alert on Twitter and our push alert service:

A southern hemisphere coronal hole is facing Earth. Enhanced solar wind could arrive in ~3 days. Follow live on https://t.co/bsXLidnzGh pic.twitter.com/vUfcxeRtvP

— SpaceWeatherLive (@_SpaceWeather_) September 4, 2018

The high speed solar wind stream flowing from this coronal hole will likely take about three days to arrive at Earth which means the solar wind stream should impact Earth somewhere this Friday, 7 September. Active geomagnetic conditions are likely which is great news for northern hemisphere high latitude sky watchers who finally enjoy proper dark nights again.