ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Astron. Space Sci.
Sec. Space Physics
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fspas.2025.1652705
This article is part of the Research TopicImpacts of the Extreme Gannon Geomagnetic Storm of May 2024 throughout the Magnetosphere-Ionosphere-Thermosphere SystemView all 5 articles
Evaluating the Geomagnetic Response to the May 2024 Super Storm – Observations and Interpretations
Provisionally accepted
Chigomezyo Ngwira1,2*
Yukitoshi Nishimura3
James M Weygand4Lois J Landwer5,6Daniel C Bush7
John C. Foster8
Philip J Erickson8- 1Department of Physics, The Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C., United States
- 2Space Weather Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, United States
- 3Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Center for Space Physics, Boston University, Boston, United States
- 4Department of Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences, UCLA, CA, United States
- 5University of Colorado, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, Boulder, United States
- 6NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center, Boulder, United States
- 7Missouri Skies Observatory, Albany, MO, United States
- 8Massachusetts Institute of Technology Haystack Observatory, Westford, United States
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On 10 May 2024, a series of coronal mass ejections were detected at Earth followed by one of the most powerful geomagnetic storms since November 2003. Leveraging a multi–technique approach, this paper provides an account of the ground geomagnetic response during the 10–11 May 2024 extreme geomagnetic storm. More specifically, we show that at the mid-latitudes in the American sector, the storm produced extreme ground geomagnetic field perturbations between 01:50 UT and 02:30 UT on 11 May. Then using the Spherical Elementary Current System method, it is shown that the perturbations were associated with an intense westward propagating auroral westward electrojet current. Finally, with the aid of auroral all-sky images from the Missouri Skies Observatory, we demonstrate that an intense isolated substorm event with onset located between the Great Lakes region and the East Coast United States was the main source of the extreme westward electrojet current and the geomagnetic field perturbations at these typical mid-latitude locations. This study emphasizes the increased risk associated with expansion of the auroral oval into the mid-latitudes during extreme geomagnetic activity.
Keywords: Space weather, geomagnetic storms, Gannon storm, extreme mid-latitude geomagnetic perturbations, Isolated substorm, auroral equatorward expansion
Received: 24 Jun 2025; Accepted: 27 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Ngwira, Nishimura, Weygand, Landwer, Bush, Foster and Erickson. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Chigomezyo Ngwira, Department of Physics, The Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C., United States
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