Historic North American GMD Events
PowerWorld Simulator supports binary and text file formats for time and spatially-varying geomagnetic disturbance (GMD) surface electric field inputs. This format allows development of detailed solar storm scenarios based on historic events or 3D earth conductivity models.
Surface electric field models developed by NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center with Empirical Magnetotelluric Transfer Functions (EMTF), which incorporate the full 3D effects of Earth conductivity structures, are available here for select historic events (b3d binary format):
- March 1989 solar storm (March 13-14, 1989)
- Bastille Day solar storm (July 14-16, 2000)
- Halloween solar storms (October 30 – November 2, 2003)
- September 2017 X8.2 class solar flare (September 6-8)
- May 12, 2021
- April 9-10, 2022
- March 23-24, 2023
Below is an electric field contour and simulated reactive power losses on a synthetic power grid (no CEII) of the May 12, 2001 event:
August 14, 2023