It has been more than a year since we published our lastest forecast. Before we continue our regular forecasts, we would like to give a summary of the space weather events for the last one and a half years!
What Happened Since July 2020?
Throughout this one-and-a-half-year period, the Sun was relatively quiet since we are in the Solar Minimum. Even though, it continued to show it was alive with different solar activities.
The most common solar activity seen in this period was high speed streams (HSS). Approximately 72 HSS were recorded from July 2020 to October 2021! A little reminder, when the bulk solar wind speed is more than 500 km/s, is it categorized as HSS!
The next activity is solar flare! Remember, while B (background) class flares do not cause sudden ionospheric disturbances (SID), stronger C and M class and the strongest X class flares may cause SID. Since July 2020, there were 31 C class, 18 M class and only 2 X class flares were observed! The first X1.5 class flare happened on July 2021 and observed with a CME, yet fortunately that CME was not Earth-directed and did not affect the Earth! The other X1.0 flare happened last month on October 2021 and it also observed with a CME. That CME was Earth-directed yet did not cause any geomagnetic storms.
Since we mentioned CME, in total almost 100 CMEs were observed since July 2020! The C (common) type CMEs are the ones which speeds are between 500 and 999 km/s, and 84 C type CMEs were observed! The faster type O (occasional) types CMEs have speed between 1000 and 1999 km/s and 10 of them observed in this period. Even though we have not observed any ER (extremely rare) CME which is the fastest type with more than 3000 km/s, we have observed 1 R (rare) type CME on July 2021, and it was not Earth-directed!
Finally, we will mention about the outcome of these activities. There were approximately 52 interplanetary shocks were recorded which are essentially indicate CME arrivals. Additionally, 24 RBEs (radiation belt enhancement) and 5 SEPs (solar energetic particles) were recorded.
We will be doing our regular space weather forecastings from now on. Do not forget to follow the blog for forecasts!
Forecaster: Ezgi Gülay
MSc. Student
Faculty of Aeronautics and Astronautics, ITU
Supervisor: Dr. Emine Ceren Kalafatoğlu Eyigüler
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