The Sun Leaks Storms While Players Rotate into Earth View | Space Weather Spotlight 16 August 2026

This week our Sun is slow-dripping a bit of extra material off the heels of a filament eruption, which, combined with a far-sided blast, has made for a tangled mess of a coronagraph signature. This is always an issue because it makes the Earth-directed part of the event harder to isolate. As it turns out, these “leaky” storms may mean we could be in for a mild disturbance through the 18th, especially when there will be some fast solar wind coming along for the ride. Aurora photographers might get some decent aurora opportunities at high latitudes, with a touch of something down into mid-latitudes (although those shows will be very fleeting). Also this week, new regions rotate into Earth view, which is already bumping up the solar flux and creating a little bit more noise on the dayside radio bands. Overall through, the increase in activity might actually help give dayside propagation a boost, since we are beginning to notice worsening conditions as we move ever closer to solar minimum. Learn more about the incoming solar storms, find out what a rise in activity means for radio operators and GPS users, and see what else our Sun has in store this week.