From Tony N2MFT:

ACTIVE SUNSPOT: It is 200,000 km long and crackling with M-class solar flares. We're talking about sunspot AR2965. This morning in Malaysia, Karzaman Ahmad photographed the sprawling active region from the Langkawi National Observatory:

AR2965 has an unstable 'beta-gamma' magnetic field. Between the sunspot's many dark cores, patches of north and south magnetic polarity are pressed together, creating conditions ripe for explosive magnetic reconnection. As a result, we have seen M-class solar flares 3 out of the past 5 days. 

So far, the explosions have not hurled any significant CMEs toward Earth. Their primary effect has been to cause a series of minor shortwave radio blackouts. Mariners, aviators, and ham radio operators may have noticed unusual propagation at frequencies below 20 MHz.  Solar flare alerts: SMS Text. ;