Double X-flares, glancing blow possible

Tuesday, 8 October 2024 17:14 UTC

Double X-flares, glancing blow possible

Solar activity reached high levels with an X2.1 solar flare that peaked at 19:02 UTC yesterday. This event came from sunspot region 3842 which was followed by a long duration X1.0 solar flare which was a combined effort between sunspot region 3842 and 3844.

The latter eruption produced a large coronal mass ejection of the west limb with LASCO showing an asymmetrical full halo coronal mass ejection. It did not look earth-directed from the get-go but with additional LASCO imagery we do see a asymmetrical full halo coronal mass ejection with the bulk clearly heading well south-west of our planet.

A strong impact at Earth from this event is not very likely, but a glancing blow or shock is very much possible. Hard to say what kind of activity to expect from it but we do not expect conditions above Kp5. Based on the speed of the cloud, a glancing blow could be possible early on Thursday, 10 October. The NOAA SWPC is still analyzing the event but in their latest analysis they did mention the cloud appears to be ahead of the Sun-Earth line.

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Active geomagnetic conditions

Observed Kp: 4
Threshold reached: 02:37 UTC

Current data suggests there is a slight possibility for aurora to appear at the following high latitude regions in the near future

Iqaluit, NU
Nuuk
The solar wind speed is currently moderately high (500.8 km/sec.)

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