Big Flare Players and Side-Swiping Storms | Solar Storm Forecast 09.12.2021

This week our Sun keeps us on pins and needles as four new active regions rotate through Earth-view. Not only are two of these regions big flare players (we have a 5% chance for X-flares), but several solar storms have been launched over the past couple days that are either grazing Earth now (or soon will be). In addition we have an unstable filament rotating through the Earth-strike zone now and it is poised to erupt. If it does over the next few days, it will likely be Earth-directed. Aurora photographers should stay comfortably alert for the remainder of this week as we might have some sporadic aurora. This is also good news for amateur radio operators, as solar flux peaked over 100 for a few days this week. Although it is back down into the low 90s as of right now, every time we cross into triple digits, it is a good sign that cycle 25 is continuing to rise! However, with this rising activity comes the potential for radio blackouts, and this week is no exception. Regions 2866 and 2868 are both big-flare players and so both radio operators and GPS users could see issues with signal reception over the next few days, especially on Earth’s dayside and near dawn and dusk. Learn the details of the coming solar storms, watch how regions 2866 and 2868 are developing, and see what else our Sun has in store this week!