Sooo folks, while you were busy yesterday figuring out what to drink at Friday's party 🍻, our dear Sun decided to throw its own party! 🌞💃 At 8:30 UTC (for those who don't get up before noon, that's 9:30 our time) it fired off a brutal X4.0 flare, which on the scale of solar explosions is something like downing five shots of juniper brandy in a row! 💥
Of course, unsurprisingly 🙄 behind it all is the same sunspot region 4274, which has been putting on a fireworks show all last week like New Year's Eve in Bratislava! 🎆 This sunspot is like a solar influencer — wherever it moves, there's drama! 👑
The flare launched a hefty dose of material (CME) into space, but our troublesome sunspot 4274 is already on the western limb of the solar disk, so most of the material is flying in a north-westerly direction. 🚀 However, on the latest imagery from the GOES-19 CCOR-1 coronagraph, we can see a faint outline of a full halo, which suggests it could at least partially hit us. That's like when you're walking home from the pub and your buddy nails you with a snowball from the side! ❄️
Looking at the solar wind forecasts 🌬️, the NOAA SWPC model claims it will miss us on November 16th like a bank account before payday 💸, but the NASA model shows it will at least graze us on the same day. Logically, we should predict a miss given the position of that cheeky sunspot 4274, but we can't ignore that faint halo outline in the coronagraph imagery. 👀
Based on my experience (and after 3 beers I always know best 🍺🍺🍺) the NASA model has a chance of hitting the bullseye, and a light impact on Sunday, November 16th, is not ruled out. A minor (G1) geomagnetic storm is already forecast for this Sunday due to the influence of a coronal hole, but let's not forget the possible impact from that CME! ⚡️
If you want to find out whether the aurora will show up over Slovakia too (the chance is small, but never say never! 🤞), follow ziara.sk like folks from Eastern Slovakia watch juniper brandy being distilled! 🔥
Your Astronomer Cassandra ✨
