Severe G4 geomagnetic storm

Tuesday, 17 March 2015 16:06 UTC

Severe G4 geomagnetic storm

Severe G4 geomagnetic storm conditions has been observed following the impact from a coronal mass ejection associated with a C9 solar flare. This is likely the strongest geomagnetic storm of the current solar cycle. Auroral displays have been reported from many high and middle latitudes locations like Canada where Zoltan Kenwell took this stunning image!

The solar wind and IMF stats remain favourable for further auroral outbreaks in the hours ahead. The direction of the IMF is a vital piece of the puzzle here and it is holding steady around -13nT with a total IMF strength of 26nT. It does look like the IMF stats are declining slowly but more strong (G3) geomagnetic storming will still be possible and aurora displays could be visible from the entire middle European middle latitudes this evening.

Any mentioned solar flare in this article has a scaling factor applied by the Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC), the reported solar flares are 42% smaller than for the science quality data. The scaling factor has been removed from our archived solar flare data to reflect the true physical units.

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