Authors: Lizet Casillas

Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) can create powerful magnetic storms that can have devastating effects on earth environment as they affect satellites, power grids, electronics and human health. The ability to predict CMEs that can be geo-effective early as possible would help to alleviate the effects of solar storms on earth. It is important to forecast the direction of the magnetic field of a CME when it interacts with the earth’s magnetosphere as it the key determinant of the effectiveness of the CME in creating geomagnetic storms. In this work it is our purpose to verify if CMEs and the filament channels from where they originated will be geo-effective by analyzing the chirality of the filament channels to determine the direction of the axial magnetic field inside channels and in the flux ropes of the corresponding CMEs and compare with the existing data bases. Chirality of CME source regions can be determined days and weeks before the eruptions, making this a better early warning compared to existing observations from satellites that indicate field direction only 10-60 minutes before the CME arrival. We will predict the magnetic configuration of CMEs at 1 AU and the potential geo-effectiveness of the solar storms based on their chirality and geometry.