Solar Activity Update Jan. 16th 2012 - CME With LED Flare

    This is a solar activity update to the LED (long duration event) flare that took place around sunspot region 1402 in the early hours of Jan 16th 2012. This LDE flare lasted about 4 hours, starting at 02:36:00 and ended at 06:46:00 with a peak at around 04:44:00. there was a CME that was produced with this LDE flare as we can see here on STEREO B.
View original report here:
 http://mysolaralerts.blogspot.com/2012/01/long-duration-flare-and-cme.html

   

    The CME had a northward ejection as we can see well on this STEREO A image.  Because of the northward direction, it was not ejected directly at earth. Though, we do suspect we will see glancing blow effects arrive sometime on Jan. 20th.

    Right now, the solar winds from Coronal Hole 493 have arrived. We can see the effects on the nict magnetosphere simulation as the solar winds of this large Coronal Hole reach earth. The winds from CH493 are expected to remain until around Jan 20th.

    Due to this, we expect there to be combined effects from CH493 with a glancing blow of today's CME sometime on Jan. 20th. A geomagnetic storm could be produced at that time. We will update you when the CME arrives as to the condition at that time.

Chances of a Solar Flare Jan 16th 2012 

Sunspot Region 1402:

52% Chance of a M Flare

41% Chance of a X Flare

http://spaceweather.inf.brad.ac.uk/monitor.html

(updates each 2min)

Update from SpaceWeather.com

Update: According to a forecast track prepared by analysts at the Goddard Space Weather Lab, this CME will hit Venus during the late hours of Jan. 18th. Because Venus has no global magnetic field to protect it, the impact will erode a small amount of atmosphere from the planet's cloudtops. There's no cause for concern, however, because Venus's massive atmosphere will scarcely notice the loss.

The same analysis shows that the CME might deliver a glancing blow to Earth's magnetic field around 1200 UT on Jan. 19th. The impact could cause geomagnetic activity and auroras around the Arctic Circle

credit: http://spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=16&month=01&year=2012