X7.1 solar flare with earth-directed CME

woensdag 2 oktober 2024 02:43 UTC

X7.1 solar flare with earth-directed CME

A major X7.1 solar flare (R3 radio blackout) peaked on 1 October at 22:20 UTC. The eruption took place around complex Beta-Gamma-Delta sunspot region 3842 close to the center of the earth-facing solar disk. This was in fact the second strongest solar flare of the current Solar Cycle thus far! An exciting jump in solar activity after a relatively quiet period with multiple potent sunspot regions currently on the solar disk!

The X7.1 solar flare which produced a Type II radio sweep was not highly eruptive as you might expect from such an event but it did produce a halo coronal mass ejection with an earth-directed component. We can see this with the help of the SOHO/LASCO coronagraph which shows coronal mass ejections leaving the Sun from Earth's point of view.

However, a majority of the ejecta is heading south-east of our planet with only a faint halo outline directed towards Earth. The NOAA SWPC did issue a strong G3 geomagnetic storm watch for tomorrow, 4 October but it might be a tad on the optimistic side. There is no doubt this cloud will pass Earth, but it's intensity is a bit of a question mark. The same can be said about it's arrival time with the NOAA SWPC's ENLIL model forecasting an arrival time around 10 UTC but in their reports they are rather vague saying there is a small chance the cloud can arrive on the 3rd of 5th of October. That isn't very helpful, however based on the ambient solar wind speed and CME speed it seems it is more likely that the cloud arrives at the tail end of this span, which would be late (European evening) on Friday, 4 October.

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