12:15 PM | Possible CME impact on Halloween Day

Discussion

As October comes to an end, the sun continues to be speckled with active sunspot regions generating numerous solar flares and the result will be a series of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) that will sweep past the Earth over the next few days. The first few of these are expected to deliver only glancing blows to the Earth’s atmosphere between now and tomorrow night, but a more direct hit is likely on Thursday, October 31st (Halloween Day). This more direct hit is the result of an eruption from Earth-facing sunspot AR1882 that occurred on Monday and reached solar flare M4-classification. High-latitude sky watchers should be on alert for possible auroras on Halloween Day (likely cloudy in the Mid-Atlantic region). Additional solar flares are possible in the next few days that could have an impact on the Earth’s upper atmosphere as multiple sunspot regions are still in Earth-facing locations.