FEB 3. INTERVIEW: NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center Service Coordinator Shawn Dahl joins FOX Weather to explain what coronal holes on the Sun can mean for space weather impacts on Earth. These areas of less dense solar material are more open, allowing solar wind to stream out at higher speeds.
Coronal holes in the Sun continue to send solar wind toward Earth, increasing the chances of Northern Lights across the northern U.S. this week, according to the latest space weather forecast.
NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) has been tracking influences from two coronal holes in the Sun for several weeks now. These areas appear like dark voids in the Sun because they contain cooler, less dense plasma, allowing the material to steam out at faster speeds and sometimes sending impacts to Earth.
A GOES-16 SUVI image taken on Feb. 9, 2025 showing two coronal holes in the Sun.
(NOAA)
Coronal holes can produce coronal high-speed streams (CH HSS), sending charged particles toward Earth and creating the dancing lights known as Aurora Borealis at our planet’s poles.
WHAT CAUSES THE NORTHERN LIGHTS?
The SWPC said a recurrent, negative-polarity CH HSS would likely cause G1 (minor) geomagnetic storm effects from late Sunday into Monday based on NOAA’s 5-level scale. Under these conditions, aurora lights could be visible across the northern tier and Upper Midwest on Sunday night and early Monday morning in places like Michigan and Maine.
FILE: After a bevy of solar activity, the new year started with a dazzling display of Aurora lights, with Alaska seeing most of the action (Video Credit: Ricky Burns/X).
While the public does not need to be concerned about space weather impacts, CH HSS and the more common coronal mass ejections (CME) from the Sun can negatively affect satellites in low-Earth orbit and the power grid. This week’s conditions are only expected to cause weak power grid fluctuations.
Coming this spring: Increasing space weather prediction capability
The latest space weather comes as NOAA works to bring its newest space weather forecasting tool online.
The GOES-19 satellite is the first in the GOES series to have a compact coronagraph, which obtains images of the corona, the outermost part of the Sun’s atmosphere, every 15 minutes. The SWPC began releasing these test images last week ahead of GOES-19 becoming fully operational this spring.
A GOES-19 Compact Coronagraph-1 (CCOR-1) image taken on Feb. 6, 2025.
(NOAA)
Data from the compact coronagraph will help NOAA’s space weather forecasters better predict when large solar storms will significantly impact Earth.