Initial Ionospheric response to the May 10, 2024 storm
Mapping the ionospheric total electron content at high latitudes during the May 10th, 2024, Super Storm. At initial storm onset (around 30 seconds in), you can start to clearly make out the auroral oval expanding southward from the Artic down to mid latitudes like the UK and Northern US. At around 19UT, a tongue of ionization starts to form over North America as plasma is drawn into the expanded high latitude convection region and patches begin to break off and drift over northern Canada and Greenland. As the heating from the storm churns up the thermosphere, the ionospheric density eventually decreases sharply due to a now abundance of molecular neutral particles facilitating faster recombination in the F-Region (above 180km altitude).