Speaker
Description
I will present the pipelines at the Austrian Space Weather Office for solar wind forecasting, using a combination of empirical-, physics- and data based models for modeling the propagation, automatic detection and flux rope characterization of CMEs (ELEvo(HI), ARCANE, 3DCORE). A particular emphasis is given on the usage of sub-L1 and far upstream data, which has just recently become available with STEREO-A and Solar Orbiter. We were now able to predict with empirical- and physics based modeling applied to Solar Orbiter and STEREO-A magnetometer data the geomagnetic effects of CMEs for a few events. Solar Orbiter MAG has observed the 2026 January 18-19 coronal mass ejection at 0.74 au and 8° away from Earth, leading to the strongest interplanetary field at L1 since systematic observations began in the mid-1990s. This event could have caused the strongest geomagnetic storm since 1989 or even 1921, if its flux rope field would have been mainly southward instead of northward. In a highly fortunate scenario, Solar Orbiter MAG allows us to test sub-L1 capabilities way before the arrival of the ESA HENON and SHIELD missions on distant retrograde orbits, even for cases of extreme solar eruptive events.
| Numerical model | ELEvo ARCANE 3DCORE |
|---|
