7 hours ago, hamateur 1953 said:

That is a big “Magnetic Cage” indeed.
wonder if @Parabolic is around?  They brought this interesting subject up in emerging flux theory awhile back I think. Although I don’t know if it would apply in this instance.   Edit:  It sure is hot in 131 ang. Just a little push. Reconnecting and blammo!  Our baseline flux is being held halfway up C level now probably by this guy alone. 

I think @Philalethes has the math figured out more than I do. It would take me an hour to figure out how to calculate the unsigned magnetic flux after learning it the third time haha. 

Interesting enough though I am begining to think magnetic shear is also playing a fair factor in the involvement of these CME-less flares.

Here is an article I found interesting about magnetic shear and the role it plays during flare reconnection:

 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/acebeb

Here's the link for the article on Magnetic Caging 

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/aba6ef

Edited April 22, 20241 yr by Parabolic
More info

1 hour ago, Parabolic said:

I think @Philalethes has the math figured out more than I do. It would take me an hour to figure out how to calculate the unsigned magnetic flux after learning it the third time haha. 

Interesting enough though I am begining to think magnetic shear is also playing a fair factor in the involvement of these CME-less flares.

Here is an article I found interesting about magnetic shear and the role it plays during flare reconnection:

 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/acebeb

Here's the link for the article on Magnetic Caging 

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/aba6ef

You are absolutely correct on magnetic shear.  The cool Halloween storms video illustrates this visibly RE: AR 10486 which developed an extensive polarity shear line just before a massive X flare.   Worth checking it out if ya haven’t yet.  Mikehttps://m.youtube.com/watch

?v=hABmdvKReNo

Edited April 22, 20241 yr by hamateur 1953
Reworded added link

I saw some aurora over my head last night (the moon made me think they were clouds for a while) but right before dawn, the moon set enough to let the sky get a little darker and I could see the characteristic pulsing of blue/green light thru what I previously thought to be clouds. Where I live you usually need a kp of at least 6 to make you look up generally but checked the noaa sight and there wasn't even geostorm or any indication of higher level aurora activity. Is it possible the instruments were wrong/malfunctioning or is it possible I saw a sub storm drop anomalously far south or something of that nature? It looked like what kp7 storms usually look like

 

6 hours ago, Parabolic said:

Interesting enough though I am begining to think magnetic shear is also playing a fair factor in the involvement of these CME-less flares.

6 hours ago, hamateur 1953 said:

You are absolutely correct on magnetic shear.  The cool Halloween storms video illustrates this visibly RE: AR 10486 which developed an extensive polarity shear line just before a massive X flare.   Worth checking it out if ya haven’t yet.  Mikehttps://m.youtube.com/watch

That's definitely true, and shear is typically better known as a factor when it comes to more eruptive flares. There's clearly an interplay of lots of different factors when it comes to whether or not a region will tend to be more productive in terms of CMEs, probably also factors we can't even directly observe yet.

Shear has been an interesting topic for a while, and I still think it's sad that there's a dearth of live data on it. When looking at the HMI SHARP data series lately I saw that there are some values in there for shear too, which it might be interesting to look at in various ways, and there are also supposedly good vector magnetogram data which can yield very cool visualizations of the magnetic field on a closer scale like e.g. this one. Would've been cool to have something like that live for the more active regions as another tool to use, it's certainly something it's possible to dig into.

Another longer lasting M flare but seems non eruptive again. This probably wont produce a CME for us anymore 😕 this cycle hates us lol

22 minutes ago, SamDieGurke said:

Another longer lasting M flare but seems non eruptive again. This probably wont produce a CME for us anymore 😕 this cycle hates us lol

tripple now!

17 minutes ago, MinYoongi said:

tripple now!

I am hoping it tires of not producing a decent CME and finally deals us something worthwhile soon!  Geomagnetic disturbances from the CH are likely to wreck the lower Ham bands anyway 🤣

Edited April 22, 20241 yr by hamateur 1953

4th xD 

its not calming down. i wonder why

it might be the northern region, oh. 

6 minutes ago, MinYoongi said:

4th xD 

its not calming down. i wonder why

it might be the northern region, oh. 

First one this cluster, second one northern, current one eastern limb region

7 minutes ago, MinYoongi said:

4th xD 

its not calming down. i wonder why

it might be the northern region, oh. 

The 4th one is from 3656

 

Edited April 22, 20241 yr by Misaka

4 minutes ago, mozy said:

First one this cluster, second one northern, current one eastern limb region

lol! Interesting! Lots of activity.

3 minutes ago, Misaka said:

The 4th one is from 3656

 

thanks misaka!

1 minute ago, MinYoongi said:

lol! Interesting! Lots of activity.

 

Like someone activated a switch lol

Of course the limb event produced a CME 

Edited April 22, 20241 yr by mozy

I am almost scared to post this, however it appears to me that the new kid on the block 3656 was responsible for the most recent M 2.6. Haha. I missed Misakas note.  

Edited April 22, 20241 yr by hamateur 1953
Oops

https://www.solarham.net/

In the latest 131Å movie on solar ham 3647 or perhaps 3648 can be seen angrily spitting repeatedly almost as if someone has their foot on it, and it wants to explode, but can’t.  This may be an extreme example of “ magnetic caging” that is being discussed here.  Although frustrating to us, it is kinda interesting to watch…. Dunno about the rest of ya though.   Mike. 

Region 3638 gives us an eruptive solar flare producing a CME. Possibly only a glancing blow for Earth at this point. To be determined.

Finally! 

At this point, I'm not expecting the CME to arrive at L1.  it seems a little too far off to the side.

I think it's hard to say if we can expect anything now from those regions, only impulsive flares and that's it. Maybe an X-Flare once it passed the limb xd

Yeah you are probably correct @Adohran 3654 seems to have grown significantly on the other side if ya want to start a thread for it, see what you think.  

I’m getting bored of all these weak M1.x “flares,” I say it’s well past time for the sun to get serious and launch something that gets at least to an R2.

42 minutes ago, NEAurora said:

I’m getting bored of all these weak M1.x “flares,” I say it’s well past time for the sun to get serious and launch something that gets at least to an R2.

Couldn't agree more! 280+ Sunspots and little activity, only those impulsive ones. If they were at least long duration I would say fair enough. I guess we have to see if anything interesting happens.

Edited April 24, 20241 yr by Adohran

I think the CME may have been a little too far off to the side for an arrival. The travel time is probably within a 60-84 hour window, but probably won't survive a CH that passed by center-disk.

Actually more around a 4 day travel. Forgot to switch back one parameter.

Edited April 24, 20241 yr by Jesterface23

Cool. Maybe this time the USA will get something but afraid to get my hopes up too high. Haha.  Btw lmsal ( solar soft) just posted a close up series on their website of our irritable AR spitting furiously if y’all wanna have a look.  Pretty cool. https://www.lmsal.com/solarsoft/latest_events/ 

2 hours ago, NEAurora said:

I’m getting bored of all these weak M1.x “flares,” I say it’s well past time for the sun to get serious and launch something that gets at least to an R2.

1 hour ago, Adohran said:

Couldn't agree more! 280+ Sunspots and little activity, only those impulsive ones. If they were at least long duration I would say fair enough. I guess we have to see if anything interesting happens.

I wouldn't expect too much from this region at this point, and now it's soon going over the limb anyway. Maybe it will complexify further as it returns, but this was already the remnant of a previous active region if I'm not entirely mistaken.

Luckily for us we most likely still have the best in store. Not too long ago someone (@hamateur 1953 or @3gMike, I believe) posted a plot of what the average cycle looks like in terms of both SN and geomagnetic activity, and I was quite surprised at just how much later the peak of the geomagnetic activity tended to be relative to the SSN maximum. Whether we passed maximum last year (unlikely if you ask me) or we're in the process of passing it now (more likely), or possibly later this year or maybe even next year, the peak of geomagnetic activity almost always tends to occur well after that happens. Looking at the geomagnetic data back to 1940 there doesn't seem to be a single exception to this.

Here's a plot of the SSN maxima against the Ap-index maxima within each cycle:

As you can see, the Ap-index peak happens after the SSN peak without fail, sometimes even long after, even close to the minimum as we can see for SC18 and SC20.