BOOM! Good Morning! M2.4 flare on the E limb from a new, incoming active region.

Boom! M1.6 flare from active region 14016. Tiny active region, not so tiny flare. Coronal dimming was observed, mostly S-ward. More soon!

Wow! Why doesn't it do this during total solar eclipses? Spectacular eruptive prominence near the SW limb this afternoon (UTC)! Look at that loop!

BOOM! Extremely long-duration M3.6 flare from active region 3998! X-ray flux was above M1.0 threshold for 1h20min! EUV (131A) imagery suggests a CME was launched, coronal dimming was evident, awaiting coronagraph imagery.

WOW! MASSIVE fast CME emerges from behind the W limb after a very long-duration M3.9 flare. The flare was likely much larger, mostly hidden behind the limb.

BOOM! X2.0 flare from AR 4001! This comes after M4.9 and M1.2 flares earlier in the day.

Why some big mid latitude aurora displays are purple and others red. In auroras close to the summer solstice oxygen reds mixing with nitrogen blues and violets, producing purple aurora. In auroras near winter solstice, the display is in Earth's shadow - no nitrogen blues, therefore no purples.

Two very impulsive M-class flares (M3.3 and M1.4) today from the very rapidly developing active region 4000. They were superimposed on a very long (6 hours and ongoing) surge in X-ray background flux, peaking near C7 and now at C4 level. More shortly!

Within 10 minutes of the first photo the sky erupted in this! The exposure is actually 2x shorter, had I kept it the same the photo would have been blown out - that's how bright the substorm was!

We who are stranded at central to low mid-latitudes know something special is going on when at 45° MLAT you begin to see distinct greens. This is the quiescent stage between the 1st & 2nd substorm of the 10-11 May 2024 G5 storm. Minutes before the sky absolutely erupted in shadow-casting aurora.

Absolutely insane eruptive prominence today! The CME it produced wasn't bad either. Too bad it's on the far side.

Should we all adopt and use these? Do we already use these? Most are pretty common, but there are some pretty exotic ones here.

Boom! M1.8 from active region 3990. Fairly close to the central meridian and there may have been a (minor) CME. More on this soon.

Boom! Finally some flares: an M1.2 at 2:28 UTC from a new active region on the E limb and another M1.2 at 10:06 UTC from AR 3990. More soon!

Any red sprite hunters around here?

The Sun isn't even trying.

Incoming hot active region on the E limb! It blasted a C7.2 fairly long duration flare and a big, fairly fast CME. Impressive! Hopefully it stays active for another 5-7 days.

AR 3981 is still waving goodbye as it rotates behind the W limb, this time with a long-duration C7.6 flare.

Anyone else like this? No matter how many times I see aurora, I get all excited when I see it again - even if it's only faint rays and pillars poking just above the northern horizon.

Koliko nas je tukaj iz Slovenije? :)

Fun fact: despite being a pretty exciting year aurora-wise, 2024 got off to a far slower start than 2025. Even if 2025 feels slow so far, and it does to me. In 2024 we got our first geomagnetic storm on March 8th. We have already had 4 in 2025 so far. Fingers crossed 2025 is even wilder than 2024.

Have you ever seen natural airglow?

Update: Bz is holding around -10 nT with lots of fluctuations, but conditions remain favourable for aurora into mid latitudes, especially upper mid latitudes. High latitudes are getting a good show.

Heads up Europe & North America! The high speed solar wind stream from the coronal hole is here, Bz is favourably negative & we are at G1 storm level. Bad news: the Moon is nearly full. Still, high and upper mid latitudes may see some good aurora activity tonight!

The sunspot number is now dropping as the large complex of active regions, including 3981, slowly rotates behind the W limb. There are some active regions in the E half of the visible disk, but mostly simple with few spots. Magnetic loops over the E limb indicate new incoming active regions.

Seems active region 3981 did the SC25 thing - it took a nap while on the central meridian and woke up a few days later. Numerous M-class flares over the past 24 hrs: M2.3, M1.6, M3.2 and M7.5. No significant CMEs from these flares, although the M7.5 possibly produced a very faint partial halo CME.

You know what would be nice? A normal world & a proper G5 geomagnetic storm. Yes. That would be nice.

Meanwhile there was also a pretty impressive filament eruption (early in the day). The eruption and consequent CME were directed to the SW, well away from us. Just SC25 things. But it did look spectacular!

Active region 3981 has retained the three magnetic deltas over the past 12-18 hours, but has only produced a single M-class flare (M2.7). This is slowly turning into a SC25 classic - active east of the central meridian (CM), takes a nap while crossing the CM, wakes up later (?).

Active region 3981 over the past 24 hours: overall the region remains mostly unchanged, the intermediate and trailing parts are complex with multiple (3) magnetic deltas, there is potential for further flares. SWPC estimates a 20% chance for an X-class flare today.

Active region 3981 has prodiced only a single (super short duration and impulsive) M-class flare over the past 20 hours. It is capable of way more.

Meanwhile on the far side of the Sun - 2 big (very likely full) halo CMEs yesterday! Solar Cycle 25 really is the Far Side cycle, at least so far. Remember that 3300+ km/s far side full halo blast back in December?

Super rapid development of active region 3981, blasting from nothing to a complex beta-gamma-delta region spewing M-class flares in under 72 hours. There is a number of magnetic deltas in the region. Wouldn't be surprised by an X-class flare today.

BOOM! Almost X-class! M8.8 flare from the rapidly growing active region 3981!

BOOM! 3981 is flaring again, this time an M4.1.

And an M2.7 from AR 3981. This active region is getting very active very fast!

Three M-class flares in quick succession today: M3.0 at 10:13 UTC from AR3981, M1.4 at 12:50 UTC from AR 3981 and M5.1 at 14:04 UTC from AR 3977. More on any potential CMEs later, if there are any.

FWIW a CME is en route after a double filament eruption late on January 30th & may impact us today. NASA M2M model has it impacting at 15-16h UTC, so it should have already arrived, but there is +/-7h uncertainty in the model timing. EPAMp is slowly rising. HUXt model has only a 15% chance of a hit.

BOOM! Brief (<15 min total) M2.4 flare from active region 3977 this afternoon.

More photographic aurora from 47°N in Europe: this time from Pizol - Bad Ragaz - Wangs, Switzerland. 3:00 UTC. Faint, but definitely there. Not bad for Kp=4!

The active region cluster 3976, 3977 & 3978 looks quite impressive as it approaches the central meridian. The most complex of the three is 3976 (beta-gamma-delta), responsible for the M6.7 flare yesterday. 3978 is also adding new spots in its northern part. Expecting further flares.

WOW! Aurora is also visible in webcam images from south Germany, here is the view from Zugspitze in the Bavarian Alps (47°N). A very transparent sky and high elevation (nearly 3000 m) sure helped, but that's another deep mid latitude detection under only Kp=4!

Wow! Upper mid-latitudes in Europe got a really nice aurora show from about 1:50 to 2:40 UTC this morning! Here is the view from Amrum Island, north Germany (55°N). Panomax webcam.

Nice! This is what the CME looks like from Stereo A. This is a wide CME, at least in its north to south extent. If it also stretches sufficiently far west we may well see an Earth directed component. Awaiting further data.

BOOM! Big M6.7 flare from active region 3978. It produced a pretty clear (in EUV 284 A imagery) CME going to the NE. Awaiting LASCO coronagraph imagery. The region is rotating towards the central meridian and increasingly Earth-facing position.

ARs 3976, 3977 & 3978 are rotating further into view. 3976 & 3977 are now both fairly complex beta-gamma regions with 20 & 25% chance for M-class flares today, respecitvely. 3978 is a simple unipolar alpha region. A small, as of yet unnumbered AR rotates into view at the end of the video.

How low can we go? This is some of the deepest solar maximum doldrums we have seen so far. The only thing keeping the sunspot number (SN) from plummeting even further is the bunch of active regions in the NE part of the solar disk (3976, 3977, 3978).

The 10-11 May 2024 G5 geomagnetic storm was quite exceptional according to a new paper (Elvidge & Themens, 2025): while a storm of this strength might happen every 12.5 years (once per cycle), a strom of this duration only happens once every 41 years!! Paper DOI: 10.1029/2024SW004113

A closer look at the incoming cluster of active regions 3976, 3977 & 3978 and their development over the past 2 days. Both 3977 (N) & 3976 (S) have developed. 3977 gains new spots & penumbral area in its central part. 3978 is a unipolar region doing its thing & not changing.

An impressive cluster of active regions has rotated into view across the NE solar limb. While large & fairly rich in sunspots, these are mostly simple active regions: 3978 - alpha, 3976 - beta, 3977 - beta-gamma. Only 3977 has a more complex configuration, favourable for flares.