Solar activity declined this week. The average daily sunspot number dropped from 121.1 to 110.3, and the average daily solar flux decreased from 146.5 to 129.8.
Six new sunspot groups appeared this week. The first two appeared on December 8, another two appeared on December 11 and 12, and two more appeared on December 13.
Geomagnetic conditions were quieter, with the planetary A index dropping from 14.1 to 5.6, and the middle latitude numbers decreasing from 7.3 to 4.6.
Predicted solar flux shows some expected improvement, with values peaking at 160 on December 20 – 21 and 155 on January 23.
Predicted solar flux is 135 on December 14 – 16; 145, 150, and 155 on December 17 – 19; 160 on December 20 – 21, and then it drops back to 135 on December 22. It will be 140 on December 23 – 24; 150 on December 25 – 26; 155, 150, and 145 on December 27 – 29; 140 on December 30 through January 2, 2024, and 135 on January 3 – 5.
Predicted planetary A index is 8, 18, and 22 on December 14 – 16; 12 on December 17 – 18; 18, 8, 8, 20, and 10 on December 19 – 23; 5 on December 24 – 29; 8 on December 30 – 31; 10 and 8 on January 1 – 2, 2024, and 5 on January 3 – 6.
Reader David Moore shared an article about agencies collaborating on space weather projects. You can read it at https://bit.ly/46ZKDNF.
On Wednesday morning, Spaceweather.com announced:
“The best meteor shower of the year peak[ed] on December 13 – 14 with no moon to spoil the show. Rural observers could see hundreds of Geminid meteors and more than a few fireballs.”
Did you know that India has a solar observatory in space? Read about it at https://bit.ly/3GGecsH.
Watch Tamitha Skov’s new video from this week about the solar storm forecast at https://youtu.be/64CTIrWBGTc.
A couple of interesting QRZ.com pages to check out are KS7ROH‘s for his astrophotography and other projects, and W6BSD‘s for links to his propagation pages.
Sunspot numbers for December 7 through 13, 2023, were 121, 125, 125, 120, 87, 80, and 114, with a mean of 110.3. The 10.7-centimeter flux was 134.6, 132.6, 127.9, 126.6, 125.9, 126.2, and 134.8, with a mean of 129.8. Estimated planetary A indices were 5, 5, 3, 4, 3, 10, and 8, with a mean of 5.6. Middle latitude A index was 4, 4, 2, 4, 3, 8, and 7, with a mean of 4.6.