Solar Activity Report for 2/6/03
- ** Aurora Watch In Effect **
The solar wind speed, while gradually slowing down, is still close to
the 500 km/sec mark tonight as a result of the most recent coronal
hole encounter, and an aurora watch is still in effect. There have
been some geomagnetic storms over the last few days, and some aurora
to go along with them. Most of the aurora were confined to Alaska and
Canada, although there were some aurora spotted and photographed in
Washington State, as can be seen here :
http://science.nasa.gov/spaceweather/aurora/gallery_01feb03.htm . The
solar wind speed should continue to decline as the Earth exits the
high speed solar wind stream. Sunspot region 278 contributed an
M-class flare to the mix early today. From the X-ray plot, it looked
to be a long-duration event, which are usually more likely to kick off
a CME. However, there's no mention of one anywhere that I can find.
There are four sunspot regions visible tonight, and three of them
appear to have at least a small chance of producing an M-class flare.
The current solar and geomagnetic conditions are :
NOAA sunspot number : 135
SFI : 150
A index : 14
K index : 3
Solar wind speed : 507.6 km/sec
Solar wind density : 2.3 protons/cc
Solar wind pressure : 0.9 nPa
IMF : 6.0 nT
IMF Orientation : 0.9 nT South
Conditions for the last 24 hours :
Space weather for the past 24 hours has been minor. Radio blackouts
reaching the R1 level occurred.
Forecast for the next 24 hours :
Space weather for the next 24 hours is expected to be minor. Radio
blackouts reaching the R1 level are expected.
Solar activity forecast :
Solar activity is expected to be mostly low with isolated M-class
flare activity from Regions 276, 277, and 278 possible.
Geomagnetic activity forecast :
For the forecast period, the geomagnetic field is expected to remain
mostly quiet to unsettled with isolated periods of active levels due
to a favorably positioned coronal hole.
Recent significant solar flare activity :
06-Feb-2003 0349Z M1.2