Massive solar flare and CME from old Sunspot 1678

   Old region 1678 which is due to return during this coming weekend produced a MASSIVE solar flare and a spectacular full-halo coronal mass ejection.

   Unfortunately, it is not heading our way because this was a farsided event. But its heading for the STEREO Behind spacecraft.

Increased Solar Activity As We Head Into March



   Today we are seeing an increase in solar activity as a few new sunspots are rotating over the Eastern limb into a more Earth facing position.  This increase gets kicked off with a C1.9 Flare @ 15:11 UTC  and a C1.6 flare @ 18:47 UTC with both C flares coming from the eastern limb located around N08E88. Normally we would not be making much fuss over a couple of C flares, but these two C flare have caught our attention for a few reasons. One, they come after a dry period of no solar flares over the B range for the last week, with last C flare being on Feb 24, 2013 and Two, we have been anticipating the arrival of these new regions as well as the return of old sunspot 1670. All these regions that are about to rotate over the eastern limb have remained active while in the backside of the solar disk and have shown some increase in size. How complex they are or if they remain active while in a direct Earth facing position is yet to be seen in the days ahead. As many have noticed, we are seeing a trend in sunspots becoming non active when they turn into a Earth facing position, only to see them regain their complexity once they near the solar western limb and begin their rotation onto the backside of the solar disk. Image Credit: SDO

Minor Geomagnetic Storm

The solar wind continues to increase this morning and is now over 500 km/s. The Bz component of the Interplanetary Magnetic Field (IMF) was tipped sharply south for several hours and a G1 Geomagnetic Storm is currently underway. We expect aurora at very high latitudes!

 Space Weather Alerts and Warnings Timeline

New region 1683 numbered

All three sunspot regions remain visible. The largest region 1682 decreased in size during the last 24 hours. It is now a DAI Beta-gamma type group at 110 millionths in size. New sunspot region 1683 was numbered overnight, it is a HSX Alpha type group at 90 millionths in size. There is now more than one spot visible and a bipolar magnetic configuration.
No C class solar flares took place yesterday, the largest solar flare was a B8 from region 1682. Only C class solar flares are expected today.