The beginning of the week will be quite extraordinary in terms of geomagnetic activity. According to the forecast of the Solar Astronomy Laboratory of the Space Research Institute RAS and the Institute of Solar-Terrestrial Physics SB RAS, almost every day the planet’s magnetosphere will be excited, and four days out of seven will be marked by G1 level magnetic storms. These days are November 20, 22, 24 and 25.

On a five-point scale of magnetic storms, level G1 is the lowest. However, it is alarming that they will not subside throughout the week. This rarely happens.

It’s one thing for a storm to rage for 24 hours, and quite another for several days in a row. What does this mean? What if this creates some kind of cumulative effect, affecting the health of weather-dependent people, and by the end of this period they will feel completely overwhelmed?

aif.ru talked about this with the chief researcher of the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences Sergei Bogachev.

Dmitry Pisarenko, aif.ru: — What is the reason for the upcoming protracted series of magnetic storms? Is it because flares are constantly occurring on the Sun?

Sergey Bogachev: — No, the high probability of storms this week is not due to flares, but to the solar wind. The Earth is entering a fast wind zone and will remain there for almost the entire week. This shouldn’t create any major storms, but the magnetic field will become quite unstable for a long time, probably until the weekend.

When flares occur on the Sun, geomagnetic storms are usually much shorter and last no more than one or two days, although their power is much higher. Now we are not talking about a continuous storm lasting a week. Only a long unstable period with isolated “red” areas is predicted, between which there will be long periods of calm.

– But this is an unusual situation? Or maybe even anomalous?

— The Earth will go through the longest series of geomagnetic disturbances this year. Whether this event will be anomalous will become clear only at the end of the week. So far the forecast has been formed for an unusually long, but still weak series of storms.

At the same time, the solar wind itself appears to be the most powerful this year. It is possible that there will be surprises in the severity of the storms. New auroras cannot be ruled out. In any case, I would recommend looking at the sky in the evening in the coming week.

— What advice do you give to weather-sensitive people these days? Can disturbances in the Earth’s magnetic field have a cumulative effect on human health?

— The influence of an alternating magnetic field occurs through currents. Fortunately, phenomena of an electrical nature do not have a cumulative effect, unlike radiation.

Nevertheless, we can advise the simplest things: rest, get enough sleep, drink more water. Let’s not forget that a huge number of people, especially in big cities, constantly live in conditions of a fairly strong electromagnetic background. It is unlikely that relatively weak disturbances, albeit unusually long ones, will be able to change anything radically in this regard. According to the current forecast, storms reaching high indices are still unlikely. We estimate this probability to be less than 5%.