Welcome to December! New month, new solar activity! Sunspot region 4274 took center stage at the beginning of November with numerous X-class events and some gorgeous coronal mass ejections, some of which arrived at Earth and caused severe G4 geomagnetic storm conditions. However she is not done yet. This sunspot region survived its trip around the far side of the Sun and she is flaring again at the start of December but with a new number: 4299. This morning ex-4274 announced her return with an X1.9 (R3-strong) solar flare that peaked at 02:49 UTC!
Ex-4274 (now AR4299) did decay on the far side but there is still fire left in her. The X1.9 solar flare was impressive and highly eruptive. A large coronal mass ejection was launched first by the flare and a secondary eruption came from a filament eruption close by. Sunspot region 4299 is however close to the east limb and the resulting CME is not aimed at our planet. Still a region to keep an eye on, we all know what she is capable of!
Another sunspot region to keep an eye on is located on the Sun’s southern hemisphere. We are of course talking about large sunspot region 4294 which has a Beta-Gamma-Delta magnetic layout and produced 6 M-class events thus far. Another potential flare producer together with sunspot region 4299!
To top things of we also have a nice trans-equatorial coronal hole facing our planet today. Solar wind flowing from this coronal hole could arrive at our planet on Wednesday, 3 December.