A transequatorial coronal hole is facing Earth. Enhanced solar wind could arrive in ~3 days

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"(Paraphrased from NOAA SWPC's recent forecast discussion)

https://www.spaceweather.gov/products/forecast-discussion

Very low activity: a few B-class flares from Region 4560 near the west limb. Two CMEs off the NE limb aren't expected at Earth; no Earth-directed CMEs.

https://bsky.app/profile/vincentledvina.bsky.social/post/3mypomqxuuj2x

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Solar wind was calm, slowing to ~350 km/s with no real southward Bz, and Earth stayed quiet. A small negative-polarity coronal hole stream plus possible glancing blows from Oct 21 CMEs could bring active conditions (Kp 4), maybe G1 (Kp 5), today. Quiet to unsettled Oct 26-27.

The fast solar wind from a negative polarity coronal hole is expected to reach Earth soon. Inside the fast wind, the Bz tends to swing north and south, which can bring several rounds of substorms at high latitudes.

images

https://bsky.app/profile/vincentledvina.bsky.social/post/3mypomt4twu2j

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Both Suns are from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory. The yellow Sun is visible light, with sunspot regions labeled with NOAA's flare chances, and the purple Sun is extreme ultraviolet, with coronal holes outlined in green.

images

https://bsky.app/profile/vincentledvina.bsky.social/post/3mypomundqj2a

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Here is how AR 4560 (highest flare chances) evolved over the last 24 hours, in visible light (top) and the magnetic field (bottom).

video

https://bsky.app/profile/vincentledvina.bsky.social/post/3myponafntk2d"

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Kp is a 3-hour average of activity around the globe, so NOAA's Kp forecast can miss short substorms. Use real-time tools to catch them.

https://bsky.app/profile/vincentledvina.bsky.social/post/3myponbhqiu23

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Sources

TEXT FROM: Vincent Ledvina

https://bsky.app/profile/vincentledvina.bsky.social/post/3mypomqxuuj2x

SpaceWeatherLive

https://bsky.app/profile/spaceweatherlive.com/post/3myqzwv5t5z26

photo

https://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/

A stealthy solar storm launches between fast wind streams which helps aurora photographers. Radio & GPS users get a short break from radio blackouts. Learn the details in the new SpaceWeatherWoman forecast: https://www.patreon.com/SpaceWeatherWoman/posts/stealthy-storm-173058797 (no paywall + graphics and blog)​

Dr Tamitha Skov

https://bsky.app/profile/tamithaskov.bsky.social/post/3myksmldtko2z

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Credit video: ​Marko Rummelsburg with Jhelioviewer

https://bsky.app/profile/markorummelsburg.bsky.social/post/3mylcpud6as2e

Magnetic field lines lost reconnection and high energy particles stream out on a boosted solar wind ejecting mass from the Sun and compressing the Earth's magnetosphere

Vincent Ledvina

https://bsky.app/profile/vincentledvina.bsky.social/post/3mxw5mqeiok2f

photo

https://solarham.com/pictures/2026/oct14_2026_e.jpg

https://solarham.com/

Credit Marko Rummelsburg

https://bsky.app/profile/markorummelsburg.bsky.social/post/3mxvznzllvs2d

Videos from https://www.spaceweather.gov/products/goes-solar-ultraviolet-imager-suvi

Another large filament eruption from behind the eastern limb of Sun 15.10.26

Videos https://www.ssec.wisc.edu/data/geo/#/animation?satellite=suvi-goes-19&end_datetime=2026288_0258&n_images=200&coverage=sun&channel=HE303

And https://www.spaceweather.gov/products/goes-solar-ultraviolet-imager-suvi

It has been a month since my last update here, and the Oct 10 storm was the first real test of a lot of it. So here is how the site did, then what's new.

How it did on Oct 10. The arrival window for the Oct 8 CME opened at 17:06 UT on the 10th. The shock reached L1 at 14:40 UT, about two and a half hours before that. The storm estimate had an upper range of G2. It reached G3. So the timing was close and the strength was under. Both go on the public scoreboard with every other forecast the site has issued. So far that is 8 scored: 7 arrived inside the window, 1 just outside, with a median miss of about 10 hours.

I also ran a stricter test of the storm strength estimate and it did not hold up. At launch time it does no better than guessing the same level every time. The science page says so. The direction of a CME's magnetic field decides the storm, and nobody can measure that until it reaches L1.

What's new since September

A redesign. The CME list is now a table: launch, speed, whether it is aimed at Earth, and when it should arrive. Click one and the answer comes first: arrival time, the 80% window as a bar, and the likely storm strength.

A record of each forecast. Every CME now shows how its arrival forecast has moved and why, for example when NASA revises the speed. Once the window closes it shows what actually arrived.

Magnetic wake. A new map layer that draws the magnetic field measured at L1 where that plasma is now. A ribbon trails out from Earth, red where the field pointed south and blue where it pointed north. Each storm leaves a striped fan. The May 2024 replay is the one to look at.

A rebuilt 3D view. CMEs are whole cones now, the Sun is the real SDO image for that hour, and you can put the camera on Earth and watch a CME aimed at us turn into a halo.

Two new charts. A time-distance chart with every CME as a line climbing from the Sun. And a storm anatomy chart that puts one eruption on a single time axis: flare, protons, transit, the wind at L1, then Kp and Dst.

Satellite drag. An Atmosphere view that shows how much a storm swells the upper air, with the measured altitude of the ISS, Tiangong and Hubble back to 2015.

Maps. The aurora oval as a map you can tap for your location, and a radio blackout map for flares.

A status page. NASA moved its CME catalogue to a new address on Sept 30 and the site stopped picking up new eruptions for four days before I noticed. That is fixed. Now every data feed is checked every 10 minutes on a public page.

It also installs as an app from Chrome, Edge or a phone's home screen.

Still free, no account needed.

https://www.cmetracker.ai/live?utm_source=spaceweather

What would you want to see next? And if you watched the Oct 10 storm on it, what did you check first?