The first of what could now be four possible CME impacts (later more on that) was observed today at the Sun-Earth L1 point at around 04;50 UTC. The total interplanetary magnetic field strength increased to about 17 nT, with the solar wind speed increasing to an impressive 800km/s. The north-south direction of the IMF (Bz) has been mostly northwards but a strong G3 geomagnetic storm watch remains in effect as more CMEs could still arrive at Earth in the coming 72 hours. If this was the first of the four CMEs that might arrive, this will likely be the weakest of them all.
Sunspot region 4274 has been fairly quiet the past 24 hours compared to its earlier activity but we did had an interesting M1.7 solar flare that peaked at 07:15 UTC today. This long duration event produced a faint halo CME with a majority of the ejecta heading towards the north-east. Yes, correct, you read that before. This time, the halo looks rather faint however along with the low speed of the ejecta at around 550km/s means that while it should arrive at Earth, we do not expect too much of it. However, considering all the other coronal mass ejections which are still on their way, it is another source of geomagnetic activity to influence our planet in the days ahead.
