Piers Corbyn has recently posted his latest WeatherAction Earthquake "trial" forecast for April, and I will be reporting on this as the month progresses. The question to answer is, will there be another major Earthquake (7+ or even 8+) accociated with a CME/X flare. It's worth taking another look at the SpaceWeather.com page for March the 10th, and just to read through the X flare event as it unfolded to see if we can match a similar situation during April. One point I came across is that the CME did provoke geomagnetic activity around the poles: CLICK to see FULL report from SpaceWeather.com for 10th March.
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CME IMPACT: A coronal mass ejection (CME) hit Earth's magnetic field on March 10th around 0630 UT. The impact, albeit weak, did provoke geomagnetic activity around the poles. High-latitude sky watchers should remain alert for auroras.
X-FLARE: March 9th ended with a powerful solar flare. Earth-orbiting satellites detected an X1.5-class explosion from behemoth sunspot 1166 around 2323 UT. A movie from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory shows a bright flash of UV radiation plus some material being hurled away from the blast site:
Updated below with comments by Piers Corbyn
UPDATE (March 10 @ 1800 UT): Newly-arriving coronagraph data from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory show no bright CME emerging from this eruption. Some material was surely hurled in our direction, but probably not enough for significant Earth-effects.
After four years without any X-flares, the sun has produced two of the powerful blasts in less than one month: Feb. 15th and March 9th. This continues the recent trend of increasing solar activity, and shows that Solar Cycle 24 is heating up. NOAA forecasters estimate a 5% chance of more X-flares during the next 24 hours.
Click source to see FULL report from spaceweather.com with video link
Also see at SpaceWeather.com for the 15th February
this report
FIRST X-FLARE OF THE NEW SOLAR CYCLE: Sunspot 1158 has unleashed the strongest solar flare in more than four years. The eruption, which peaked at 0156 UT on Feb. 15th, registered X2 on the Richter scale of solar flares. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded an intense flash of extreme ultraviolet radiation:
X-flares are the strongest type of solar flare, and this is the first such eruption of new Solar Cycle 24. In addition to flashing Earth with UV radiation, the explosion also hurled a coronal mass ejection (CME) in our direction. The expanding cloud may be seen in this movie from NASA's STEREO-B spacecraft. Geomagnetic storms are possible when the CME arrives 36 to 48 hours hence.
A few days later we had the
Christchurch Earthquake in New Zealand!!
Stay tuned for April
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