CME tomorrow, coronal hole faces Earth

Wednesday, 12 October 2016 18:35 UTC

A coronal hole is facing Earth. Enhanced solar wind could arrive in ~3 days - Follow live on https://t.co/T1Jkf6i4Cb pic.twitter.com/EE7Ll1UVxo

— SpaceWeatherLive (@_SpaceWeather_) 12 oktober 2016

The dark area you see in the image above from SDO is actually an extension of the southern hemisphere polar coronal hole that reaches all the way up to the solar equator. A fast flowing solar wind stream is now on its way to our planet and should arrive either late on Friday (14 October) or perhaps early on Saturday.

Indeed something to look out for apart from the coronal mass ejection! Talking about th incoming coronal mass ejection: note that the NOAA SWPC has a minor G1 geomagnetic storm watch in place for tomorrow and Friday but we do have to keep in mind how slow and faint this plasma cloud is. A long stint of southward IMF (Bz) can of course do a lot but we bet the coronal hole solar wind stream is a more likely candidate to bring us up to possible minor storm conditions. A couple of interesting days are waiting for us. Good luck!