Working Meeting - Comparison of Ground-level Measurements, Models and Impacts of the St Patrick’s Day 2015 Geomagnetic Storm

Ellen Clarke (BGS); Ari Viljanen (FMI); Alan Thomson (BGS)
Thursday 17th, 17:00 - 18:30, Mercator

The geomagnetic storm of 17th – 18th March 2015 – widely known now as the ‘St. Patrick’s Day Storm’ – was
one of the most severe of the current solar cycle. This storm had the potential to impact ground-based
technologies such as power transmission systems, as well as pipeline and railway networks, through enhanced
surface electric and magnetic fields and geomagnetically induced currents (GIC).

In this working meeting we will therefore discuss any ground-based technological impacts of this storm and
we are looking for contributions containing measured and model data that will help us understand the
relationship between the measurements and the impacts, as seen across the world. To provide context for the
events around the St Patrick’s Day storm we would also like to discuss measured/modelled/impact ground-based
data for other severe storms in the past few years.

We encourage the participation of researchers and engineers from outside Europe to get a global picture of
this and other recent events, as seen in ground-based data and technologies. The meeting may also consider
whether a useful output would be a combined paper on the ground-based impacts, data and models of the St.
Patrick’s Day storm, based on discussions.