So let's get to it, my dear glow lovers! ☀️ The Sun showed us its "dark" side today, literally. A coronal hole has dolled itself up pointing straight at Earth and is sending us a fast stream of solar wind, as if it wanted to send us a message "hi, here I am!" 💨
This hole sits somewhere in the northern hemisphere of the Sun and is getting ready to properly shuffle the deck for us. We're expecting an increase in solar wind speed and a strengthening of the interplanetary magnetic field. Translated into human speech: a mini show is coming to the sky! 🎆
## When can we expect the aurora
According to the forecasts, we should see active conditions up to a weak G1 geomagnetic storm (Kp5), once the so-called CIR arrives. What is a CIR? Picture it like a traffic jam on the D1 highway near Bratislava, only instead of cars, it's packed particles of solar wind piling up ahead of that faster wave. 🚗💨 This "jam" should reach us on Tuesday, September 15th.
By the way, there's also another coronal hole in the southern hemisphere of the Sun, but it's probably too far south, so it likely won't have an impact on our space weather. It's like when someone sneezes in Košice, you can barely feel it over at Šírava. 🤧 If you want to know more about coronal holes, check out our help article, we'll explain it properly for you.
## Solar flares? Boring for now
As for solar flares and sunspots, it's currently quiet as a pedestrian zone. 😴 We don't currently have any significant sunspots on the solar disk worth talking about. All the more interesting regions are just rotating away from us, as if waving us goodbye. 👋
The chance of an M-class flare in the next 24 hours is low, so no big drama going on. But watch out, space is as unpredictable as my mood after the third beer! 🍺😅
So my dear glow hunters, keep watching the sky and above all keep watching ziara.sk, so you don't miss any chance to catch that beautiful show overhead! I'll be at Šírava with a beer in hand and my eyes fixed on the north. 🍻🌠
Your Astronomer Cassandra ✨
