The sun sure has woken up this week, unleashing a powerful X-class solar flare on Jan. 18 that hurled a colossal, fast-moving coronal mass ejection (CME) directly toward Earth. That CME has now arrived, triggering severe (G4) geomagnetic storm conditions far earlier than initially forecast.
The shock wave from the CME struck at 2:38 p.m. EST (1938 GMT) on Jan. 19, according to NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center, which confirmed that G4 storm levels were reached shortly after impact. The storm is ongoing, and space weather forecasters say CME passage will continue through the evening, keeping the door open for more aurora activity tonight.
