Smithsonian Volcanic Report

14 March-20 March 2012

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The Sun Today: March 23, 2012

Solar Winds: 377.5 km/h
Density: 1.4 protons/cm³ – Sunspots: 86 – The geomagnetic field was quiet to active on March 22.

Solar wind speed at SOHO ranged between 345 and 442 km/s. A minor disturbance was observed arriving at ACE near 18h and caused unsettled conditions for the remainder of the day and early on March 23.

Solar flux measured at 20h UTC on 2.8 GHz was 102.4 (decreasing 6.5 over the last solar rotation). The Potsdam WDC planetary A index was 9 (STAR Ap – based on the mean of three hour interval ap indices: 8.6). Three hour interval K indices: 12110134 (planetary), 11001233 (Boulder).

The background x-ray flux is undetermined (the main data source for x-ray flux, GOES-15, is unavailable. SWPC is using GOES-13 to monitor x-ray flux).

At midnight UTC the visible solar disk had 8 spotted active regions (in 2K resolution SDO images).

Region 11433 [N09W82] decayed slowly and quietly.
Region 11438 [S14E44] was quiet and stable.
Region 11440 [S26W38] decayed and currently has a magnetically simple structure.
New region 11441 [S28W56] emerged in the southwest quadrant on March 19 and was numbered by SWPC 3 days later.
New region 11442 [N12E52] emerged in the northeast quadrant on March 21 and got an SWPC number one day later.
New region 11443 [N16E65] rotated into view at the northeast limb on March 21 and was assigned a number by SWPC the following day.

Spotted regions not reported by NOAA/SWPC:
[S1543] emerged in the northeast quadrant on March 22. Location at midnight: N20E52
[S1544] emerged in the northeast quadrant on March 22. Location at midnight: N23E14

An active region is early on March 23 rotating into view at the southeast limb (S23E86) with several spots. The region could produce C flares.

Coronal mass ejections (CMEs)

March 20-22: No obviously Earth directed CMEs were observed in LASCO and STEREO imagery.

Coronal holes

Coronal hole history (since October 2002)
Compare today’s report to the situation one solar rotation ago: 28 days ago 27 days ago 26 days ago

A coronal hole (CH508) in the southern hemisphere was in an Earth facing position on March 20. CH508 decayed and had closed on March 22 due to new corona from AR 11440. A very elongated recurrent trans equatorial coronal hole (CH509) will rotate into an Earth facing position on March 23-26.

Coronal hole map