The Sun is bouncing Back to Life

The sun is bouncing back after its reorganization of sunspots. As predicted, Sunspot 4172 hit Earth facing, and it has reformed into a beta-gamma classed sunspot. We are starting to gain more complexity that will lead to activity in the coming days. I look for it to continue to strengthen and produce some activity in the coming days. 4168 is rotating around the outgoing limb. But before it departs, it has dropped a quarter halo CME. Unfortunately, it’s just going to tickle us with the edge of the storm instead of being a direct hit.

The northern part of the coronal hole will deliver its impact tonight or tomorrow. I don’t think it is going to rock our world. The rest of the southern part of the coronal hole is not yet fully earth-facing. Thus, activity should continue for the better part of the week. I am thinking there just has to be a really strong wind. It is coming out of the backside of this coronal hole. So far, NOAA seems to agree.

Flaring is picking back up again. We are seeing a regular pattern develop. Individual flares are reaching up into M Class range. They are starting to show longer duration as well. Which leads me to think the rhythm is working up to something bigger to come.

Bad news is that all these thunderstorms have done nothing to remove the smoke or put out fires. The majority of the US has light smoke. Except for the Dakotas, which are seeing the most direct and thickest amount of smoke. The Northern East Coast has moderate smoke. The good news is the cloud cover is a little thinner. There are only isolated thunderstorms passing through the Great Lakes Region. The East Coast is mostly cloud-free and is part of the western United States. Unfortunately the Midwest is going to see two more days of rain. Though maybe we will see some breaks in the clouds.

This is a good week to make sure your camera bag is ready to go. Make sure you have brushed up on your checklists. There are no big plasma spikes at the moment. Still, that can change at any time with this sunspot in the go zone. And we do have lots of solar wind coming off this huge coronal hole. With a few prayers and little luck, maybe we will be blessed this week. The best news for the Great Lakes is that it is to be less cloudy. This will happen later in the week for the second wave.