A Forbush decrease (FD) is a depression of cosmic ray (CR) intensity observed by ground-based neutron monitors (NMs). The CR intensity is thought to be modulated by the heliospheric magnetic structures including the interplanetary coronal mass ejection (ICME) surrounding the Earth. The different magnitude of the decreasing in intensity at each NM was explained only by the geomagnetic cutoff rigidity of the NM station. However, sometimes NMs of almost the same cutoff rigidity in northern and southern hemispheres observe the asymmetric intensity depression magnitudes of FD events. Thus, in this study we intend to see the effects on CR intensity modulation of FD event recorded at different NMs due to different ICME propagation directions as an additional parameter in the model explaining the CR modulation. Fortunately, since 2006 the coronagraphs of twin spacecraft of the STEREO mission allow us to infer the propagation direction of ICME associated with the FD event in 3-dimension with respect to the Earth. We suggest the hypothesis that the asymmetric CR modulations of FD events are determined by the propagation directions of the associated ICMEs.

We have developed an algorithm for tracking coronal mass ejection (CME) propagation that allows us to estimate CME speed and its arrival time at Earth. The algorithm may be used either to forecast the CME’s arrival on the day of the forecast or to update the CME tracking information for the next day’s forecast. In our case study, we successfully tracked CME propagation using the algorithm based on g-values of interplanetary scintillation (IPS) observation provided by the Institute for Space- Earth Environmental Research (ISEE). We were able to forecast the arrival time (Δt = 0.30 h) and speed (Δv = 20 km/s) of a CME event on October 2, 2000. From the CME-interplanetary CME (ICME) pairs provided by Cane & Richardson (2003), we selected 50 events to evaluate the algorithm’s forecast capability. Average errors for arrival time and speed were 11.14 h and 310 km/s, respectively. Results demonstrated that g-values obtained continuously from any single station observation were able to be used as a proxy for CME speed. Therefore, our algorithm may give stable daily forecasts of CME position and speed during propagation in the region of 0.2–1 AU using the IPS g-values, even if IPS velocity observations are insufficient. We expect that this algorithm may be widely accepted for use in space weather forecasting in the near future.