Moderate G2 geomagnetic storm

Thursday, 2 March 2017 16:41 UTC

Moderate G2 geomagnetic storm

The anticipated coronal hole solar wind stream really packed a punch and gave us moderate G2 geomagnetic storming conditions yesterday. The solar wind stream turned out to be stronger than anticipated as only minor G1 geomagnetic storm conditions were expected! The north-south direction of the IMF (Bz) dropped down as low as -17nT yesterday which is very respectable for a CIR ahead of the coronal hole solar wind stream.

 bWe are still occasionally reaching the minor G1 geomagnetic storm threshold today as the solar wind speed remains high (between 700 and 750km/s at the moment) but we are not expected stronger storm conditions than the this. Be sure to follow us on Twitter for automated alerts so you will be notified instantly if we are at geomagnetic storm levels.

Fantastic auroral displays were seen at many high latitude locations today and yesterday. Even folks at upper middle latitudes locations managed to capture some aurora. Below we have a couple of images. Enjoy!

Header image: Calum Gladstone Photography (Northumberland, England)

Mark Ferrier (Scotland)

Tobias Åberg (Ljungskile, Sweden)

Kristopher Roller (Iceland)

Kristopher Roller (Iceland)

Steven Lomas (South Shields, England)

Thomas Tomz Henriksen (Gilbjerg Head, Denmark)

Robin Eriksson Franzén (Kalix, Sweden)

Tommy Richardsen (Nordreisa, Norway)

Ollie Taylor Photography (Scotland)

Owen Humphreys (Northumberland, England)

Susanne Johansson (Gotland, Sweden)

Richard Hoeg (Minnesota, USA)

Benjamin Maverick Woods (Tasmania, Australia)

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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