March Geomagnetic Summary
Posted: Sun Apr 02, 2017 6:35 am
March's geomagnetics have been dominated by three events, all of which were related to the presence of coronal holes in the solar atmosphere.
Early March saw the return of a large canyon shaped coronal hole spewing fast flowing solar wind that persisted for 12 days as Earth passed through its wake, sparking beautiful aurora as it did so. There was then a period of relative quiet until the solar wind from another coronal hole struck the Earth on March 21st. The shape of this coronal hole seems to have limited the effect to a couple of days, being much more compact than the canyon shaped one.
After a few more days of calm the canyon returned as the Sun rotated it into view. The southerly magnetic field wrapped up in the solar plasma emanating from it proved particularly potent when it linked with Earth's own field, sparking aurora down to lower latitudes than normal. Sadly I was unable to see anything from home because of clouds and light pollution. The solar wind from this coronal hole remains geoeffective now several days on after it first struck.
If the canyon returns again on another rotation, then we might venture to predict further geomagnetic storms and beautiful auroral displays around April 22nd, but don't book your flights on the basis of my forecast
I hope you find this interesting.
Inset images NASA/SDO
Thanks for looking.
Stu.
Early March saw the return of a large canyon shaped coronal hole spewing fast flowing solar wind that persisted for 12 days as Earth passed through its wake, sparking beautiful aurora as it did so. There was then a period of relative quiet until the solar wind from another coronal hole struck the Earth on March 21st. The shape of this coronal hole seems to have limited the effect to a couple of days, being much more compact than the canyon shaped one.
After a few more days of calm the canyon returned as the Sun rotated it into view. The southerly magnetic field wrapped up in the solar plasma emanating from it proved particularly potent when it linked with Earth's own field, sparking aurora down to lower latitudes than normal. Sadly I was unable to see anything from home because of clouds and light pollution. The solar wind from this coronal hole remains geoeffective now several days on after it first struck.
If the canyon returns again on another rotation, then we might venture to predict further geomagnetic storms and beautiful auroral displays around April 22nd, but don't book your flights on the basis of my forecast
I hope you find this interesting.
- March Summary.jpg (283.67 KiB) Viewed 3156 times
Thanks for looking.
Stu.
it is getting a bit light to view now, I hope they continue into the autumn