Geomagnetic storm still ongoing, it is one of the longest

One of the longest geomagnetic storms of the current solar cycle is still underway : the event began on the morning of June 1st following a coronal mass ejection or CME, i.e. matter in the form of plasma, which reached the Earth triggering a severe, G4-class storm. The event then continued in the following days with lower intensity and with a brief pause in the night between June 1st and 2nd , but for today the Center for Space Weather Forecasting of the American agency NOAA still predicts a strong G3- class storm and aftermath could be felt in the coming days.

“The disturbance is still ongoing, I don’t remember another one lasting so long,” Mauro Messerotti, professor of Space Meteorology at the University of Trieste, told ANSA. “It’s difficult to say whether it will continue in the next few days, it depends on so many factors,” he commented, “that making predictions is practically impossible.” The current storm is a noteworthy event not only for its anomalous duration : “It’s a particular event,” Messerotti said, “because the effect of the CME was added to that of the solar wind produced by two coronal holes on the surface of the Sun , one in the Northern hemisphere and one in the Southern hemisphere, and therefore there was a cumulative effect .”

Coronal holes are areas of the corona, the outermost part of the solar atmosphere, in which the solar magnetic field opens outwards, allowing the escape of swarms of particles at extremely high speeds. The solar wind was responsible for another disturbance that occurred just a few days ago: in the night between May 28 and 29, a first peak of class G3 occurred and, after a decrease, the storm increased again to class G2, to then run out at dawn on May 30. "The level of solar activity is actually moderate at the moment - adds Messerotti - but all these secondary phenomena play an important role".