A Canadian perspective on the May 2024 space weather event

The May 2024 space weather disturbance is the latest (as of the time of writing) in a series of space weather events going back to 1859 that have documented impacts on critical infrastructure and technologies. Impacts on these systems range from minor degradation (e.g., static or noise in a communication link) to major, which was demonstrated by a complete blackout of the Hydro-Québec power system on 13 March 1989. This event heightened international awareness of space weather and motivated efforts toward enhanced resilience. This paper presents the May 2024 space weather event from a unique Canadian perspective, demonstrating the Canadian Space Weather Forecast Centre (CSWFC) approach to monitoring, forecasting, and alerting to characterize space weather phenomena and mitigate their impacts. Satellite data, numerical modelling of solar wind disturbances, and ground-based magnetometer and riometer data from instruments located in Canada demonstrate the progression of the event. In response to observations of enhanced solar activity, the CSWFC issued a major geomagnetic storm WATCH spanning an almost 3-day period, a major geomagnetic storm WARNING for more than 1 day that began at auroral latitudes but quickly expanded to cover all of Canada, and a solar proton WARNING for more than 2 days. Impacts to high-frequency communications and Global Navigation Satellite System positioning, navigation, and timing over Canada are evaluated using Transport Canada’s Civil Aviation Daily Occurrence Reporting System entries and reported outages of the Wide Area Augmentation System. This paper compares the May 2024 event with the March 1989 event and evaluates the latitude and magnetic local time distribution of the geomagnetic perturbations. In general, geomagnetic activity increased from southeastern to northwestern North America.