Belgium's Royal Observatory comment for today, Dec. 8, 2018
COMMENT: The solar activity has been quiet over the past 24 hours. The
bipolar sunspot group (Catania sunspot group 2, NOAA 2729) remained
globally stable and did not produce any significant flare. A new region is
visible on the East limb, but so far do not show any strong activity.
Flaring conditions are expected to remain quiet with a very small change of
C-class flare.
No Earth directed Coronal Mass Ejection has been observed. The greater than
10 MeV solar protons flux remained at nominal levels over the past 24 hours
and is expected to remain so.
The solar wind environment is under the influence of the enhanced solar
wind associated with the Coronal Hole (which reached the central meridian
on December 04). The wind speed continued to gradually increase from about
425 km/s to reach the values around 570 km/s ; The interplanetary magnetic
field strength fluctuated between 5 and 10 nT and the southward magnetic
component between -7 and 6 nT being mainly positive. The enhanced solar
wind conditions are expected to persist in the following days as long as
Earth remains under the influence of the solar wind associated with the
coronal hole.
The geomagnetic conditions were quiet to unsettled with short periods of
active condition observed by the local station in Dourbes (K-Dourbs=4) on
December 7, at 20:00 UT and 21:00 UT. The conditions are expected to remain
the same in response to an enhanced interplanetary magnetic field, short
periods of active condition are possible especially if there is a prolonged
period of southward directed Bz component.
TODAY'S ESTIMATED ISN : 000, BASED ON 09 STATIONS.
Earlier, one station reported observing 10 sunspots, but now there is a significant disagreement:
8 of the 21 stations reporting seem to be outliers. 21 - 13 = 8.
The average EISN is now approximately 6.8.
2018 12 01 2018.916 0 0.0 10 11
2018 12 02 2018.919 0 0.0 16 16
2018 12 03 2018.922 0 0.0 20 20
2018 12 04 2018.925 0 0.0 27 29
2018 12 05 2018.927 18 2.4 19 21
2018 12 06 2018.930 20 1.7 16 18
2018 12 07 2018.933 17 2.4 17 19
2018 12 08 2018.936 0 0.0 13 21
Today's GOES X-ray flux shows increased solar activity, almost into the B-class.
With a gradual rise and a gradual decline, this may be a hyderflare, which is a rupture of a magnetic filament.
So far, NOAA has not issued any reports regarding this solar activity.
https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/sola ... nt-reports
However, this increased solar activity could be from the new active region, which is rotating into view.
By the way, this tiny new active region has a normal polarity consistent with solar cycle 24.
Click this link to view the latest NASA image (HMI) of the sun showing the magnetic polarity.
https://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/assets/img/la ... _HMIBC.jpg