M6.6 solar flare with earth-directed CME

Monday, 13 May 2024 18:46 UTC

You'd expect the associated coronal mass ejection to be well of the Sun-Earth line but this was a very energetic and wide eruption which showed up as an asymmetrical full halo coronal mass ejection from Earth's point of view as you can see on the imagery from SOHO/LASCO below.

Today's M6.6 solar flare from sunspot region 3664 launched an energetic and wide coronal mass ejection which has a chance to arrive at Earth despite the region being close to the west limb. An asymmetrical full halo coronal mass ejection was launched which has a good chance to… pic.twitter.com/9EKDn99kWD

— SpaceWeatherLive (@_SpaceWeather_) May 13, 2024

Due to the high ambient solar wind speed we expect that the coronal mass ejection from this M6.6 solar flare doesn't slow down too much which means it could transit the Sun-Earth gap in less than two days. We expect a possible impact late tomorrow (14 May) or early on Wednesday (15 May). The arrival of this plasma cloud will be more of a glancing blow most likely but nonetheless it could spark a minor G1 geomagnetic storm with a bit of luck.