As the Sun Turns: Solar Minimums and Maximums

[Maria]

On Tuesday, November 8, 2016, a CME is expected to strike the earth, not from an active sunspot, but from a Hyder Flare.

Here is a video showing a Hyder Flare and release of a CME:

http://www.spaceweather.com/images2016/ ... 81kjtrm7q7

Note the daily number of sunspots has declined dramatically in November 2016 with an average-to-date of 18. The October highs, peaked at 70 around this time last month. On November 2, the sun had a spotless day with tomorrow high predicted to be around 10. In comparison, during a Solar Maximum at its peak, daily numbers of sunspots can exceed 300.

[Maria]

Since there are three sunspots illustrated on the solar disk: #2612, #2613 (which is moving around to the back side of the sun), and #2614, all of which have a "stable" Beta magnetic configuration, I do not know which one of these sunspots erupted.

I just checked data in Belgium and this is one of the NOAA chart that I have copied below.
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/solar ... nt-reports

Event BEG. MAX END OBS Q TYPE LO Particulars REG#

3210 + 0333 0340 0344 G15 5 XRA 1-8A B5.9 2.6E-04 2615

3220 + 0540 0545 0548 G15 5 XRA 1-8A B5.5 1.7E-04 2615

3230 + 0703 0710 0712 G15 5 XRA 1-8A C7.5 1.6E-03 2615

See this interesting page at http://www.lmsal.com/solarsoft/latest_events/

Surprise: New Sunspot 2615 has just unleashed a C7.5 solar flare at 0710 UTC today, Tuesday, November 29, 2016. I just happened to glance at the 6 hour plot from NASA and noticed this sudden impulsive flare shown below.

[Maria]

Newly named Sunspot AR2615 has been quite explosive with several impulsive flares:

Visit the site http://www.lmsal.com/solarsoft/latest_events/
Scroll down to the chart shown below.
Click EDate #10, and it will show the precise location of the flare on the solar disk when it occurred at 0333 UTC.
http://www.lmsal.com/solarsoft/latest_e ... index.html

Event Date .. START . STOP . PEAK . CLASS LOCATION of AR2615 (assigned sunspot #)
#
10 20161129 03:33:00 03:44:00 03:40:00 B5.9 S08E64
11 20161129 05:40:00 05:48:00 05:45:00 B5.5 S08E63
12 20161129 07:03:00 07:12:00 07:10:00 C7.5 S08E62
13 20161129 09:53:00 10:02:00 09:57:00 B3.8 S05E61
14 20161129 10:08:00 10:24:00 10:14:00 B5.4 S07E60
15 20161129 12:05:00 12:34:00 12:13:00 C2.6 S07E59
16 20161129 15:47:00 16:06:00 15:56:00 B7.8 S07E58
17 20161129 16:18:00 16:23:00 16:23:00 B7.5 S07E56
18 20161129 16:36:00 16:48:00 16:41:00 C1.1 S07E56
19 20161129 17:19:00 17:26:00 17:23:00 M1.0 S07E56
20 20161129 18:58:00 19:03:00 19:01:00 B5.9 S07E54

[Maria]

We just had another solar flare erupting from sunspot AR 2615.
This one registered at M1.2 at 2338 UTC, which is 3:38 PM PST, November 29, 2016.
This means that we had two M class solar flares on Nov. 29, 2016.

And this sunspot AR2615 is still developing. What lies ahead?

We now have three Beta Sunspots facing us. AR 2614 and AR 2615 are rapidly developing.
Nevertheless, AR 2612 and AR 2164 are stable.

Regions with Sunspots. Locations Valid at 29/2400Z

Nmbr Location Lo Area Z LL NN Mag Type
2612 N09W10 194 0150 Cao 04 04 Beta (geocentered)
2614 N05E21 163 0080 Cro 05 07 Beta (moving toward being geocentered)
2615 S08E51 132 0030 Dsi 04 02 Beta

[Maria]

I got an interesting piece of natural art showing two more C flares from sunspot 2615.
The top plots in red and in blue look like those oil field pumpers commonly found in the western states.

Event Date & START PEAK .. X-Ray Location

17 2016/11/29 23:29:00 23:38:00 M1.2 S07E51
18 2016/11/30 01:00:00 01:04:00 B3.4 S07E51
19 2016/11/30 01:14:00 01:19:00 C6.0 S07E51
20 2016/11/30 02:09:00 02:22:00 C3.1 S07E51

Click this link to see the global plot results of this M1.2 solar flare:
http://www.spaceweather.com/images2016/ ... jn1genip89

[Maria]

Multiple sunspots pepper our sun, which is now quite active, like it has arisen from slumber.

INFO FROM SIDC - RWC BELGIUM 2016 Nov 30 12:30UTC

The strongest events of the period were two M1 flares peaking at resp.
17:23UT and 23:38UT. Both were produced by sunspot region NOAA 2615
(S05E45), with no obvious coronal dimming observed. A small delta in the
middle portion of NOAA 2615 was the cause of all the flaring. This sunspot
region is still quite small, but is gradually growing and has mostly kept
its relatively complex magnetic configuration. NOAA 2612 and NOAA 2614 are
decaying and were quiet. No earth-directed coronal mass ejections (CMEs)
were observed in available coronagraphic imagery from SOHO and STEREO-A.
The greater than 10MeV proton flux was at nominal levels.

http://www.sidc.be/index.php#

See recent solar image here - http://www.sidc.be/LatestSWData/LatestSWData.php

[Maria]

Here is an interesting site which I just discovered:

https://solarmonitor.org/region.php?dat ... gion=12615

And below is the daily sunspot plot, which averaged around 22 sunspots per day for the month of November 2016. That is quite a drop and indicates a rapid plunge into the Solar Minimum. These two recent M1 sun flares also indicates the extreme instability in our sun.