Our Sun’s Hot Longitude and a Side of Aurora | Space Weather News 26 May 2025

This Space Weather News forecast sponsored in part by Millersville University: https://www.millersville.edu/swen Our Sun remains a bit choosy this week, only allowing activity to pick up at a “hot longitude” just west of center disk. Region 4098 is the first to take the bait, grow rapidly over the past 48 hours and firing off some short-lived but large flares. The largest, an X1.1-flare gave us a brief R3-level radio blackout, but the radio noise from this region continues to be a problem on the dayside radio bands. Amateur radio operators should expect sporadic radio blackouts at the R2-level to continue, especially with the chance that other Regions like 4092, 4093, and old Region 4094 might become flare-active as they rotate over that same hot longitude later this week. Despite the flares, no solar storms are Earth-directed, but aurora photographers can look forward to the fast solar wind that will sweep past Earth starting around the 28th. This wind should be enough to bump us to minor storm levels at high latitudes and might even give us a little show at mid-latitudes. With us crossing through a new moon, we may not need strong aurora for a good show (at least in the southern hemisphere without the midnight Sun). Learn the details of the coming fast wind, watch the big solar flares develop, and see what else our Sun has in store this week.