A magnetic storm will hit the Earth — when?

A new magnetic storm will hit the Earth on February 16. This was announced on Friday at the Laboratory of Solar Astronomy Institute of Space Research RAS. According to the schedule posted on the Laboratory’s official website, the strength of the magnetic storm expected on Monday will not exceed the G1 level. The day before — February 15 — the geomagnetic situation will also be excited, but will not reach storm levels.

Scientists do not predict further magnetospheric excitations until the end of the month. As the scientific organization notes, there is a rapid drop in activity on the Sun, associated with the departure of a large group of spots, which raged in early February, to the far side of the star.

At the moment, there are only two active regions worth mentioning on the luminary, measuring 1.5 million kilometers in size. There is no energy in any of these areas — over the past 12 hours not a single, even the weakest, flare has occurredexperts say.

According to them, the last time zero solar activity was recorded was in April 2024. However, just a month after this event, in May 2024, one of the strongest bursts of activity in history occurred, accompanied by the only highest-level magnetic storm on Earth in 20 years.

Number of days with magnetic storms in January was the highest since 2017reported the Solar Astronomy Laboratory of the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. As scientists note, cosmic events at the beginning of the year confirm expectations that this year will be the most geomagnetically active in a decade.

source: RIA Novosti Crimea