A Stormy New Year Celebration: Solar Storm Forecast

“Our Sun decides to celebrate New Years early this week with some fast wind from a familiar coronal hole that has brought us multiple solar storms in past months. True to form, it has bumped us up to solar storm conditions and has brought aurora down to mid-latitudes in several parts of the world. Storm effects including aurora views should continue over the next few days and at high latitudes, possibly into the new year before things quiet down. Despite the Sun being spotless, we do have a bright region lighting up the Earth-facing Sun this week. It has been enough to keep the solar flux near the low end of marginal for radio propagation on Earth’s day side and will continue to do so over this next week. Learn the details of the ongoing solar storm, how it is affecting GPS, amateur, and shortwave radio on Earth’s night side, catch up on aurora photos from the storm thus far, and see what else our Sun has in store this week!”