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Giant sunspot AR4551 fired an M-class flare on Oct 16 while Earth's magnetic field stays quiet, and the Orionid meteor shower peaks Oct 21-22 under a 74%-lit moon that sets a few hours after midnight, leaving the pre-dawn hours for meteor watching.
Read the story →Sentinel-6 altimetry shows a Pacific ocean swollen by up to 1.3 feet in places, NOAA puts the odds of an El Niño stronger than any since 1950 at 83% for Oct–Dec, and the winter outlook points to a wetter US South.
Earth-facing sunspot region AR4551 has spent days in a beta-gamma-delta configuration and has produced most of the Sun's flares, all C-class so far. NOAA puts the chance of an M-class flare at 25% through Oct 18 and says an X-class flare is possible.
Four days after an M6.4 flare and a G3 storm, a coronal-hole stream topping 600 km/s is buffeting Earth. EarthSky says G1, maybe G2. NOAA's newest outlook peaks at Kp 3.67, below storm level. High latitudes have the best shot.
Two M-class flares from sunspot region AR4549 launched CMEs on Oct. 6, and NOAA expects one to arrive early Oct. 9 with G1-G2 storming (Kp up to 5.67). Skies will be dark, with the Moon nearly new.
After a quiet stretch, the Sun fired three M-class flares in about 13 hours. Most of the action came from AR4549, a fast-growing sunspot that didn't exist a day earlier and now has the magnetic tangle that can produce bigger flares.
A filament eruption on Sept. 28 launched a two-part partial halo CME, and NOAA has posted a G1 (minor) geomagnetic storm watch for Oct. 2, with a flanking blow that could bring aurora to high latitudes.
A canyon-shaped coronal hole's high-speed solar wind is hitting Earth just after the equinox, and NOAA forecasts a G1 storm with Kp near 5 that could paint auroras across Alaska, Canada, Scotland and southern New Zealand through Sept. 26.
NOAA forecasts a G1 geomagnetic storm for Sept. 24 as a coronal-hole solar wind stream arrives right after the equinox, a seasonal alignment that historically boosts aurora odds.
The September equinox and an incoming coronal-hole solar wind stream are stacking the odds toward a minor G1 geomagnetic storm and aurora sightings on Sept. 23–24, 2026.
Two CMEs and a filament eruption from an active sunspot region are due to strike Earth's magnetic field September 16-17, and NOAA's storm watch means the aurora could sneak into mid-latitude skies this weekend.
Two coronal holes, one in each solar hemisphere, are rotating into Earth-facing position, and forecasters say the resulting solar wind streams could spark G1-level auroras around the equinox.
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