June 2026 gave Solar Cycle 25's so-called declining phase its loudest month yet, and the following four weeks kept proving that "post-maximum" is not the same as "quiet." On the 3rd, Active Region 4455 fired three major flares within about ten hours of each other (an M9.3, an M7.7, and finally an X1.0), each throwing off a coronal mass ejection, with the X-class event triggering an R3-strong radio blackout across the sunlit hemisphere.
NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center answered with a G3-strong geomagnetic storm watch for June 4 and 5, warning that the combined CMEs could push aurora as far south as Illinois and Oregon. The region's magnetic complexity kept forecasters on edge for days afterward.
That wasn't a one-off. AR4473 opened the solstice with an M3-class flare on June 21, and the month closed the way it began: on June 30, Region 4475 fired an M5.8, followed within hours by an X1.1 from neighboring Region 4479, causing a S1 minor radiation storm warning. NOAA's own tally for the final week of June counted one X-class flare, two dozen M-class flares, and fifty coronal mass ejections; the kind of numbers that belong to a rising cycle, not a fading one. "Post-maximum" describes an average. It was never a ceiling.
Comment: There have been 5 earthquakes of at least magnitude 6 along the Pacific Ring of Fire in the last 11 days, details of the other 4: